Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 1:40

And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

40 45. Cleansing of a Leper

40. there came ] Better, there cometh, in the present tense. See Introduction, p. 19.

a leper ] One afflicted with the most terrible of all maladies, “a living death, a poisoning of the springs, a corrupting of all the humours, of life; a dissolution little by little of the whole body, so that one limb after another actually decayed and fell away.” The Jews called it “the Finger of God,” and emphatically “the Stroke;” they never expected to cure it (see 2Ki 5:7). With lip covered (Eze 24:17), and bare head (Lev 14:8-9), and rent garments, the leper bore about with him the emblems of mortality, “himself a dreadful parable of death.” Compare the cases of Moses (Exo 4:6), Miriam (Num 12:10), Naaman (2Ki 5:1), Gehazi (2Ki 5:27).

kneeling down to him ] St Mark alone describes this attitude of the leper, as also the look of compassion which beamed forth from the face of the Lord, spoken of in the next verse.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

And there came a leper … – See the notes at Mat 8:1-4.

Kneeling down to him – He kneeled and inclined his face to the ground, in token of deep humiliation and earnest entreaty. Compare Luk 5:12.

If thou wilt – This was an acknowledgment of the almighty power of Jesus, and an appeal to his benevolence.

Make me clean – You (Jesus) can heal me of this loathsome and offensive disease, in the eye of the law justly regarded as unclean, and render me legally clean, and restore me to the privileges of the congregation.

And Jesus …touched him – It was by the law considered as unclean to touch a leprous man. See Num 5:2. The fact that Jesus touched him was evidence that the requisite power had been already put forth to heal him; that Jesus regarded him as already clean.

I will – Here was a most manifest proof of his divine power. None but God can work a miracle; yet Jesus does it by his own will – by an exertion of his own power. Therefore, Jesus is divine.

See thou say nothing to any man – The law of Moses required that a man who was healed of the leprosy should be pronounced clean by the priest before he could be admitted again to the privileges of the congregation, Lev. 14. Christ, though he had cleansed him, yet required him to be obedient to the law of the land – to go at once to the priest, and not to make delay by stopping to converse about his being healed. It was also possible that, if he did not go at once, evil-minded men would go before him and prejudice the priest, and prevent his declaring the healing to be thorough because it was done by Jesus. It was of further importance that the priest should pronounce it to be a genuine cure, that there might be no cavils among the Jews against its being a real miracle.

Offer for thy cleansing those things … – Two birds, and cedar-wood, and scarlet, and hyssop; and after eight days, two he-lambs, without blemish, and one ewe-lamb, and fine flour, and oil, Lev 14:4, Lev 14:10.

For a testimony unto them – Not to the priest, but to the people, that they may have evidence that it is a real cure. The testimony of the priest on the subject would be decisive.

Mar 1:45

Began to publish it much – That is, he made known his own cure. He was so deeply affected with it, and so much rejoiced, that he followed the natural dictates of his own feelings rather than the command of the Saviour.

Jesus could no more enter openly into the city – The word could, here, does not refer to any natural inability, or to any physical obstacle in his way, but only denotes that there was difficulty, inconvenience, or impropriety in his doing it then; that he judged it best not then to enter into the city. The difficulty was, probably, that his being in the city drew such crowds of people as rendered it difficult to accommodate them, or so as to excite the opposition of civil rulers.

The city – The city or large town where the leper was cured. The same reason for not entering that city applied also to others, so that he remained in the deserts, where the multitudes could come to him without any difficulty or opposition.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Mar 1:40-45

And there came a leper to Him, beseeching Him.

The cured leper still rebellious

I. His disease.

II. His application.

1. We have here an intelligent appreciation of Christ as the Healer.

2. We have an instance of genuine earnestness.

3. We see here the marks of true humility.

4. A sample of prayer for a special gift.

5. But here is illustrated a very unworthy conception of Christs love.

III. His cure-Jesus spake and it was done.

1. His method bears proof of Divinity-I will, be thou clean.

2. The cure was instantaneous.

3. It was complete.

4. The cure must have been welcome.

IV. His obligation.

1. That obligation covered the whole area of his life.

2. The healer always becomes the sovereign. He who commanded the disease, commanded the patient also.

3. The requirement of Christ was founded in solid reason.

4. The obligation involved public acknowledgment and substantial gift.

V. His contumacy.

1. Complete redemption is not obtained until the will is subdued.

2. This mans contumacy was thoughtless.

3. This contumacy was fraught with disastrous effects. (D. Davies, M. A.)

The approach of a needy life to Christ

I. The deep need of this mans life-And there came a leper unto Him.

1. It was a need that filled the life of this man with intense misery.

2. It was a need from which no human remedy could give relief.

3. It was a need that brought him into immediate contact with Christ.

II. The manner in which this needy life approached the Saviour.

1. His appeal to Christ was characterized by a truthful apprehension of his need.

2. His appeal to Christ was characterized by an acknowledgment of the Divine sovereignty.

3. His appeal to Christ was characterized by great earnestness.

4. His appeal to Christ was characterized by deep humility.

5. His appeal to Christ was characterized by simple faith.

III. The response which the appeal of this needy life awakened in the beneficent heart of Christ.

1. It awakened tender compassion.

2. It received the touch of Divine power.

3. It attained a welcome and effective cure.

Lessons:

1. That it is well for a needy life to approach Christ.

2. That a needy life should approach Christ with humility and faith.

3. The marvellous way in which Christ can supply the need of man. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Christs touch

I. Whatever Diviner and sacreder aspect there may be in these incidents, the first thing, and, in some senses, the most precious thing in them is that they are the natural expression of a truly human tenderness and compassion. It is the love of Christ Himself-spontaneous, instinctive-without the thought of anything but the suffering it sees-which gushes out and leads Him to put forth His hand to the outcast beggars and lepers. True pity instinctively leads us to seek to come near those who are its objects. Christs pity is shown by His touch to have this true characteristic of true pity, that it overcomes disgust; He is not turned away by the shining whiteness of the leprosy. Christ loves us, and will not be turned from His compassion by our most loathsome foulness.

II. We may regard the touch as the medium of His miraculous power. There is a royal variety in the method of our Lords miracles; some are wrought at a distance, some by a word or touch. The true cause in every case is His own bare will. But this use of Christs touch, as apparent means for conveying His miraculous power, illustrates a principle which is exemplified in all His revelation, namely, the employment, in condescension to mens weakness, of outward means as the apparent vehicles of His spiritual power. Sacraments, outward ceremonies, forms of worship, are vehicles which the Divine Spirit uses in order to bring His gifts to the hearts and the minds of men. They are like the touch of Christ which heals, not by any virtue in itself, apart from His will which chooses to make it the apparent medium of healing. All these externals are nothing, as the pipes of an organ are nothing, until His breath is breathed through them, and then the flood of sweet sound pours out. Do not despise the material vehicles and the outward helps which Christ uses for the communication of His healing and His life, but remember that the help that is done upon earth, He does it all Himself.

III. Consider Christs touch as a shadow and symbol of the very heart of His work. Christs touch was a Priests touch. He lays His hand on corruption and is not tainted. It becomes purity. This was His work in the world-laying hold of the outcast-His sympathy leading to His identification of Himself with us in our misery. That sympathetic life-long touch is put forth once for all in His incarnation and death. Let our touch answer to His; let the hand of faith grasp Him.

IV. We may look upon these incidents as being a pattern for us. We must be content to take lepers by the hand, to let the outcast feel the warmth of our loving grasp if we would draw them into the Fathers house. (A. McLaren, D. D.)

Christ touches corruption without taint

Just as He touches the leper and is unpolluted, or the fever patient and receives no contagion, or the dead and draws no chill of mortality into His warm hand, so He becomes like His brethren in all things, yet without sin. Being found in the likeness of sinful flesh, He knows no sin, but wears His manhood unpolluted, and dwells among men blameless and harmless, the Son of God, without rebuke. Like a sunbeam passing through foul water untarnished and unstained; or like some sweet Spring rising in the midst of the salt sea, which yet retains its freshness and pours it over the surrounding bitterness, so Christ takes upon Himself our nature and lays hold of our stained hands with the hand that continues pure while it grasps us, and will make us purer if we grasp it. (A. McLaren, D. D.)

The cleansing of the leper

I. Let us put together the facts of the case.

II. The principal lessons suggested by this narrative.

1. Here is an illustration of the good effects of speaking about religious truth in connection with Christ. The fame of Christ was spread abroad throughout Syria, and found its way to the leper.

2. That doubts are no reason why we should not go to Christ-Lord, if thou wilt, etc.

3. That no possible circumstances ought to prevent our going to Christ for salvation.

4. Christs love and willingness to save is the great idea of the gospel. (W. G. Barrett.)

Cleansed by Christ

A nun in an Italian convent once dreamed that an angel opened her spiritual eyes, and she saw all men as they were. They seemed so full of uncleanness that she shrank back from them in horror. But just then Jesus Christ appeared among them with bleeding wounds, and the nun saw that whoever pressed forward and touched the blood of Jesus, at once became white as snow. It is so in everyday life. It was Jesus who cleansed that reformed drunkard from the stain of his sin. Years ago he was poor and ragged and unclean. Today he is clean and healthy and well dressed; the grace of Christ has been manifested in the cleansing of the outer as well as of the inner man. (Sunday School Times.)

Cleansing of the leper

I. The pitiable object that is were presented. The malady was one of the most distressing that ever seized a human being. It was usually regarded as produced by the immediate agency of the Most High. The rules prescribed for its treatment were very minute and stringent. Among the many immunities with which we are favoured in this happy land, may be reckoned the entire absence of leprosy. But if bodily leprosy is unknown among us, spiritual leprosy is not.

1. It was hereditary.

2. A representation of sin in the consequences with which it was attended.

II. The application which he made.

1. It was earnest.

2. It was humble.

3. It expressed great confidence in the Saviours ability.

4. It indicated some doubt of His willingness to exert the power He possessed.

III. The response he met with.

1. The emotion which the Saviour felt-Moved with compassion.

2. The act He performed-Put forth His hand, and touched him.

3. The words He uttered-I will; be thou clean.

4. The effect produced-The leprosy departed from him.

IV. The directions he received.

1. These instructions were necessary. The law enjoined that the priest should pronounce the leper clean before he could enjoy the privileges-whether social, civil, or religious-of which he had been deprived.

2. However needful these instructions may have been, the restored leper, in the fulness of his joy and gratitude, was unable to comply with them. See the ability of Christ to save. A personal application to Him is necessary. (Expository Outlines.)

Christs relation to human suffering

Christ presented to us in three aspects.

I. As a worker-He stretched forth His hand and touched him. This act was-

1. Natural. The means employed were in harmony with His nature as a human being. Christ felt His oneness with the race.

2. Profound. A common thing apparently, yet who can tell what power was in that touch. Doubtless there was the communication of a power invisible to human eyes.

3. Beneficent. Here we have the cure of an incurable.

4. Prompt. The earnest appeal obtained an immediate response. This was characteristic of Christ.

II. As a speaker. And saith, etc. This shows-

1. His Divine authority-I will. Such a fiat could have come only from the lips of a Divine person-Never man spake, etc., With authority He commandeth, etc. (Mar 1:28).

2. His consciousness of power. Christ fully knew what power He possessed. Not so with man; consequently how much latent energy lies dormant in the Church of Christ.

3. His possession of power-Be thou made clean. At the unfaltering tones of Christs voice all diseases fled.

III. As a healer-And straightway the leprosy departed, etc. This healing was-

1. Instantaneous.

2. Perfect. (A. G. Churchill.)

The Saviour and the leper

No one afflicted with this loathsome disease was allowed to enter the gates of any city. In this case, however, the mans misery and earnestness led him to make a dangerous experiment. Persuaded of the Lords power to heal; longing to put it to the test; almost sure of His willingness; he will rush into the city, and ere ever the angry people have had time to recover from their astonishment at his boldness, he hopes to find himself cured and whole at the feet of Jesus. There was both daring and doubting in his action. The mans earnestness is seen further in his manner.

1. He knelt before the Lord, and next fell on his face-his attitude giving emphasis to his words.

2. He besought Jesus-in fear, in doubt, in secret dread lest the Lord should see some reason for withholding the boon he craved, but yet in faith. And his faith was great. He did not, like Martha, consider Christs power as needing to be sought from God; he believed it to be lodged already in Christs person; and he also believed His power to be great enough to reach even his case, although as yet no leper had received healing from Christ.

3. His faith was rewarded. Jesus touched him-no pollution passing from the leper to Him, but healing going from Him to the leper.

4. Instantly the leprosy departed. Nothing is a barrier to the Lords will and power. (Andrew A. Bonar.)

Leprosy

As to this disease observe: heat, dryness, and dust, predispose to diseases of the skin everywhere, and all these causes are especially operative in Syria. Insufficient food assists their action; and boils and sores are apt to fester and poison the system. Leprosy is a disease found over a large tract of the worlds surface; it is found all round the shores of the Mediterranean, from Syria to Spain, in a virulent form, and in North and South Africa. It was carried to various countries in Europe by those who returned from the crusades, and became prevalent even in England, in the times when our forefathers had no butcher meat in winter but what was salted, and little vegetable diet with it. In a form less virulent than in Palestine, it exists in Norway, where the government supports several hospitals for lepers, and seeks to prevent the spread of the disease by requiring all afflicted with it to live-unmarried-in one or other of these. Probably, salt fish in Norway forms the too exclusive food of the poor, as it also probably did in Palestine in the time of Christ. Mrs. Brassey found it in the islands of the Pacific. It is so common in India that when Lord Lawrence took formal possession of Oude, he made the people promise not to burn their widows nor slay their children (the girls), nor bury alive their lepers. It was a loathsome disease, eating away the joints, enfeebling the strength, producing diseases of the lungs, almost always fatal, though taking years to kill. It was the one disease which the Mosaic law treated as unclean; perhaps, as being the chief disease, God wished to indicate that all outward misery had originally its root in sin. He that was afflicted with it had to live apart from his fellows, and to cry out unclean when any came near him; often, therefore, could do no work, but had to live on charity. He was not permitted to enter a synagogue unless a part were specially railed off for him, and then he must be the first to enter and the last to quit the place. It was as fatal as consumption is with us; much more painful; loathsome as well, infecting the spirits with melancholy, and cutting the sufferer off from tender sympathies and ministries when he most needed them. (R. Glover.)

The lepers prayer

This prayer is very remarkable. For observe-

I. The case would seem absolutely hopeless. Many could feel that for a Lordly spirit like Christs to have control over evil spirits was natural, but would have held the cure of a leper an impossibility; for the disease, being one of the blood, infected the whole system! If onlookers might so think, how much more the leper himself! Every organ of his body infected deeply, how wonderful that he could have any hope. But he believes this great miracle a possibility. Yet note-

II. His prayer is wonderfully calm. In deepest earnest he kneels. But there is no wildness nor excitement. Mark also-

III. How a great law of compensation runs through our lives, and somehow those most grievously afflicted are often those most helped to pray and trust. I once saw a leper at Genadenthal in South Africa-an old woman. Tell him, said she to the doctor, who took me to see her, I am very thankful for my disease; it is the way the Lord took to bring me to Himself. This man had had the same sort of compensation, and while the outward man was perishing the inward man was being renewed day by day. Copy his prayer, and ask for mercies though they seem to be sheer impossibilities. (R. Glover.)

Can and will

It is an old answer, that from can to will, no argument followeth. The leper did not say unto Christ, If Thou canst, Thou wilt; but, If Thou wilt, Thou canst. (H. Smith.)

I. The cure of our souls is the pure effect of the goodness and free mercy of God.

II. Jesus Christ performs it by a sovereign authority.

III. His sacred humanity is the instrument of the Divine operation in our hearts.

IV. It is by His will that His merits are applied to us. Fear, for He does not put forth His healing hand and touch all; hope, for He very frequently puts it forth, and touches the most miserable. (Quesnel.)

The worlds treatment of lepers, and Christs

You remember the story of the leper which the poet Swinburne has woven into one of his most beautiful, most painfully realistic, poems. He tells about a lady at the French Court in the Middle Ages, who was stricken with leprosy. She had been courted, flattered, idolized, and almost worshipped for her wit and beauty by the king, princes, and all the royal train, until she was smitten with leprosy. Then her very lovers hunted her forth as a banned and God-forsaken thing; every door in the great city of Paris was slammed in her face; no one would give her a drop of water or piece of bread; the very children spat in her face, and fled from her as a pestilential thing, until a poor clerk, who had loved the great lady a long way off, and had never spoken to her until then, took her to his house for pitys sake, and nursed her until she died, and he was cast out and cursed himself by all the religious world for doing it. That was what the leper had become in the Middle Ages, and something like that he was among the Jews of our Saviours time, hated by men because believed to be hated by God, carrying in his flesh and skin the very marks of Gods anger, contempt, and scorn, the foulest thing on Gods fair earth, whose presence meant defilement, and whom to touch was sin. That was the thing that lay at Christs feet, and on which that pure, gentle hand was laid. He stretched forth His hand and touched him, and said, I will, be thou clean; and straightway his leprosy was cleansed. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.)

Christs saving touch

I. The wonderful way is which Christ kindled hope in these desperate wretches. He helped men to believe in themselves as well as in Himself. We cannot see how it was done. Nothing had been said or done to give this confidence in his recoverability, yet he has it. You can show a man in a score of ways, without telling him in so many words, that you do not despair of him. A glance of the eye is enough for that. The first step in saving the lost is to persuade them that they are not God-abandoned.

II. Christs touch. Christ saved men by touching them. He was always touching men, their hands, eyes, ears, lips. He did not send His salvation; He brought it. Gifts demoralize men unless we give part of ourselves with them. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.)

The use of personal contact

Our gifts only demoralize men unless we give part of ourselves along with them. Even a dog is demoralized it you always throw bones to it instead of giving them out of your hand. You breathe a bit of humanity into the dog by letting it lick your hand, and it would almost rather do that than eat your bone. What have we done to save men when we have sent them our charities? Almost nothing. We have filled their stomachs, indeed, and lightened their material wants, but have sent their souls still empty away. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.)

The cleansing of the leper

There are in this case elements which ought to be found in any man who is suffering from soul disease and defilement.

I. A painful consciousness of his true position. He looked at his leprosy; felt its pain; knew its disabling uncleanness. The sinner sees his sin as disgrace, a danger, and a disgust.

II. A proper sense of his present opportunity. Great Healer was approaching; Lord of love and pity was here; representative of heaven passed by. He was drawn to Jesus; prostrate before Jesus; urgent upon Jesus. A present decision; a present acceptance; a present salvation.

III. A plain acknowledgment of the Lords power. Thou canst; I cant; others cant; but Thou canst, I know it, because Thou hast cleansed others; hast power to cleanse; hast come forth to cleanse.

IV. A pressing urgency concerning the Lords pleasure. If Thou wilt. Perhaps I am too vile. It may be my sorrow may plead. In any case I will take my refusal only from Thee. Observe-

1. The leper makes no prayer. Readiness to receive is in itself a prayer. Uttered prayer may be no deeper than the mouth; unuttered prayer may be evidence of the opened heart.

2. The leper raises no difficulty. He comes-worships-confesses his faith-puts himself in the Lords hands.

3. The leper has no hesitation as to what he needs-Slake me clean. As to whom he trusts-Thou canst. As to how he comes-A leper. Misery in the presence of mercy-humility pleading with grace-faith appealing to faithfulness-helplessness worshipping at the feet of power. Such is a leper before the Lord. Such is a sinner before the Saviour. Such should we be to this day of grace. (J. Richardson, M. A.)

The method of spiritual salvation illustrated

I. The leper put himself unreservedly in the hands of the Healer.

II. Christ instantly gave practical expression to His own deep pity.

III. The completeness of Christs cure. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Leprosy a symbol of sin

I. From a small beginning it spreads over the entire man.

II. Its cure is beyond the reach of human skill or natural remedies.

III. It is painful, loathsome, degrading, and fatal.

IV. It separates its victim from the pure and drives him into association with the impure.

V. It is a foe to religious privileges.

IV. It can re remedied by the interposition of God. (Anon.)

Christs pity shown more in deeds than in words

I doubt whether Christ ever said anything about the Divine compassion more pathetic or more perfectly beautiful than had been said by the writer of the 103rd Psalm. It is not in the words of Christ that we find a fuller and deeper revelation of the Divine compassion, but in His deeds. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth His hand and touched him, touched the man from whom his very kindred had shrunk. It was the first time that the leper had felt the warmth and pressure of a human hand since his loathsome disease came upon him. And said, I will, be thou clean. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)

The leper cleansed

I. Sorrow turns instinctively to the supernatural.

II. Christ is never deaf to sorrows cry.

III. Christ is superior alike to material contamination and legal restriction. (Dr. Parker.)

Christs mission a protest against death

Every healed man was Christs living protest against death. The mere fact of the miracle was but a syllable in Christs magnificent doctrine of life. Christs mission may be summed up in the word-Life; the devils, in the word-Death; so that every recovered limb, every opened eye, every purified leper, was a confirmation of His statement, I have come that they might have life. (Dr. Parker.)

The cleansing of the leper

I. A melancholy picture to be studied.

II. An excellent example to be copied.

1. He made his application in the proper quarter. He came to Jesus.

2. He made his application in the right way.

3. He made his application in the proper spirit, kneeling.

III. A sweet encouragement to be taken.

IV. A necessary duty to be performed. Silence and the offering of sacrifice. Gratitude; penitence; consecration.

V. An uncommon mistake to be avoided. He began to blaze abroad the matter. (T. Whitelaw, M. A.)

Reasons for silence respecting Christs miracles

Our Lord did not mean that the man should keep it only to himself, and that he should not at all make it known to any; for He knew that it was fit His miracles should be known, that by them His Divine power and the truth of His doctrine might be manifested to the world; and therefore we read that at another time He was willing a miracle of His should be made known (Mar 5:19). But Christs purpose here is to restrain him-

I. From publishing this miracle rashly or unadvisedly, and in an indiscreet manner.

II. From revealing it to such persons as were likely to cavil or take exceptions at it.

III. From publishing it at that time, which was unfit and unseasonable-

(1) Because Christ was yet in the state of His abasement, and was so to continue till the time of His resurrection, and His Divine glory was to be manifested by degrees till then, and not all at once;

(2) Because the people were too much addicted to the miracles of Christ, without due regard to His teaching. (G. Petter.)

With the charge to tell it to the priest the Saviour gave the charge to tell it to no one else.

I. Christ did not want a crowd of wonder seekers to clamour for a sign, but penitents to listen to the tidings of salvation.

II. The man would be spiritually the better of thinking calmly and silently over His wondrous mercy, until at all events he had been to the Temple in Jerusalem and back. Do not tattle about your religious experience; nor, if you are a beginner, speak so much about Gods mercy to you that you have not time to study it and learn its lesson. This man, had he but gone into some retired spot and mastered the meaning of His mercy, might have become an apostle. As it is, he becomes a sort of showman of himself. (R. Glover.)

Unostentatious philanthropy

I. This unostentatious philanthropy was consequent upon a real cure.

II. Was animated by a true spirit. Some people enjoin silence in reference to their philanthropy-

1. When they do not mean it. Mock humility.

2. Lest they should have too many applicants for it. Selfishness or limited generosity.

3. Others in order that they may modestly and wisely do good. So with our Lord. Much philanthropy marred by its talkativeness.

III. Was not attended with success. Hence we learn-

1. That the most modest philanthropy is not always shielded from public observation.

2. That there are men who will violate the most stringent commands and the deepest obligations.

Lessons:

1. To do good when we have the opportunity.

2. Modestly and wisely.

3. Content with the smile of God rather than the approval of men. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The judicious reserve which should characterize the speech of the newly converted

Observe:

I. That a wise reserve should be exercised by the newly converted in reference to the inner experiences of the soul. Because unwise talk is likely-

1. To injure the initial culture of the soul.

2. To awaken the scepticism of the worldly.

3. To be regarded as boastful.

4. To impede the welfare of Divine truth.

II. That this wise reserve must not interfere with the imperative obligations of the sanctuary.

1. To recognize its ordinances.

2. To perform its duties.

3. To manifest in its offerings a grateful and adoring reception of beneficent ministry. With this no reserve of temperament or words must be allowed to interfere.

III. That this wise reserve is sometimes violated in a most flagrant manner. How many young converts act as the cleansed leper. We must be careful to speak at the right time, in the right manner, under the right circumstances. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Show thyself to the priest

The reasons for the command are not far to seek.

1. The offering of the gift was an act of obedience to the law (Lev 14:10; Lev 14:21-22), and was therefore the right thing for the man to do. In this way also our Lord showed that He had not come, as far as His immediate work was concerned, to destroy even the ceremonial law, but to fulfil.

2. It was the appointed test of the reality and completeness of the cleansing work.

3. It was better for the mans own spiritual life to cherish his gratitude than to waste it in many words. (Dean Plumptre.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 40. There came a leper] See the notes on Mt 8:2, c. Should any be inclined to preach on this cleansing of the leper, Mark is the best evangelist to take the account from, because he is more circumstantial than either Matthew or Luke.

I. Consider this leper.

1. He heard of Jesus and his miracles.

2. He came to him for a cure, conscious of his disease.

3. He earnestly besought him to grant the mercy he needed.

4. He fell down on his knees, (with his face to the earth,

Lu 5:12,) thus showing his humbled state, and the distress

of his soul.

5. He appealed to his love – if thou wilt with a full conviction

of his ability – thou canst; in order to get healed.

II. Consider Jesus.

1. He is moved with tender compassion towards him: this is the

alone source of all human salvation.

2. He stretches forth his hand, showing thus his readiness to

relieve him.

3. He touches him; though this was prohibited by the law, and

rendered him who did it in any common case legally unclean.

4. He proves at once his infinite love and unlimited power, by

his word and by his act; I will – be thou cleansed; and

immediately his leprosy was removed.

But See Clarke on Mt 8:2.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

We before had this piece of history, in Matthew, See Poole on “Mat 8:2-4“, we shall also meet with it hereafter in Luk 5:14,15. Our Lord being moved with compassion, or affected in his bowels, (as the word signifies), is often used as expressive of the cause of his acts of mercy: thus in curing the leper, he at once both showed himself the Son of man, one who could have compassion on our infirmities, and indeed could not but have such a commiseration toward mankind; and the Son of God, that he could in an instant, by a touch, or by the word of his power, command off a disease of so difficult cure. For his charging of him to say nothing to any man, we are not able to give a perfect account of it, whether it was to avoid a suspicion of ostentation, or to avoid a throng of company pressing upon him, or to avoid the odium which he knew the doing of these mighty works would bring him under with the scribes and Pharisees, until the time came for the fuller revelation of himself. Much less can we tell how to excuse the leper for doing contrary to this charge, which we find many others to have done who had the like charge, yet we read not of our Saviours blaming them for it. Mark addeth, that his publication of it caused that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places; by which is to be understood only places less inhabited; some think, places near the shore, where by going into a ship (as he often did) he could more easily quit himself of the throng of people, for (as it followeth) they came to him from every quarter.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And there came a leper to him,…. After he was come down from a certain mountain, in Galilee, where he had been preaching to the people, Mt 8:1, and when be was in a certain city, Lu 5:12, either Capernaum, or some other city of Galilee. This man was full of leprosy, as Luke says, and very probably deemed incurable; of the nature and symptoms of the leprosy, [See comments on Lu 5:12],

beseeching him; to cure him of his leprosy:

and kneeling down to him; in token of submission, respect, and reverence, and to worship him:

and saying unto him, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean;

[See comments on Mt 8:2]. Mark omits the word “Lord”.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Healing of a Leper.

      40 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.   41 And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.   42 And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.   43 And he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away;   44 And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.   45 But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.

      We have here the story of Christ’s cleansing a leper, which we had before, Matt. viii. 2-4. It teaches us,

      1. How to apply ourselves to Christ; come as this leper did, (1.) With great humility; this leper came beseeching him, and kneeling down to him (v. 40); whether giving divine honour to him as God, or rather a less degree of respect as a great Prophet, it teaches us that those who would receive grace and mercy from Christ, must ascribe honour and glory to Christ, and approach to him with humility and reverence. (2.) With a firm belief of his power; Thou canst make me clean. Though Christ’s outward appearance was but mean, yet he had this faith in his power, which implies his belief that he was sent of God. He believes it with application, not only in general, Thou cast do every thing (as John xi. 22), but, Thou cast make me clean. Note, What we believe of the power of Christ we must bring home to our particular case; Thou canst do this for me. (3.) With submission to the will of Christ; Lord, if thou wilt. Not as if he had any doubt of Christ’s readiness in general to help the distressed, but, with the modesty that became a poor petitioner, he refers his own particular case to him.

      2. What to expect from Christ; that according to our faith it shall be to us. His address is not in the form of prayer, yet Christ answered it as a request. Note, Affectionate professions of faith in Christ, and resignations to him, are the most prevailing petitions for mercy from him, and shall speed accordingly. (1.) Christ was moved with compassion. This is added here, in Mark, to show that Christ’s power is employed by his pity for the relief of poor souls; that his reasons are fetched from within himself, and we have nothing in us to recommend us to his favour, but our misery makes us the objects of his mercy. And what he does for us he does with all possible tenderness. (2.) He put forth his hand, and touched him. He exerted his power, and directed it to this creature. In healing souls, Christ toucheth them, 1 Sam. x. 26. When the queen toucheth for the evil, she saith, I touch, God heals; but Christ toucheth and healeth too. (3.) He said, I will, be thou clean. Christ’s power was put forth in and by a word, to signify in what way Christ would ordinarily work spiritual cures; He sends his word and heals,Psa 107:20; Joh 15:3; Joh 17:17. The poor leper put an if upon the will of Christ; If thou wilt; but that doubt is soon put out of doubt; I will. Christ most readily wills favours to those that most readily refer themselves to his will. He was confident of Christ’s power; Thou canst make me clean; and Christ will show how much his power is drawn out into act by the faith of his people, and therefore speaks the word as one having authority, Be thou clean. And power accompanied this word, and the cure was perfect in an instant; Immediately his leprosy vanished, and there remained no more sign of it, v. 42.

      3. What to do when we have received mercy from Christ. We must with his favours receive his commands. When Christ had cured him, he strictly charged him; the word here is very significant, embrimesamenos—graviter interminatus–prohibiting with threats. I am apt to think that this refers not to the directions he gave him to conceal it (v. 44), for those are mentioned by themselves; but that this was such a charge as he gave to the impotent man whom he cured, John v. 14, Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee; for the leprosy was ordinarily the punishment of some particular sinners, as in Miriam’s, Gehazi’s, and Uzziah’s, case; now, when Christ healed him, he warned him, he threatened him with the fatal consequence of it if he should return to sin again. He also appointed him, (1.) To show himself to the priest, that the priest by his own judgment of this leper might be a witness for Christ, that he was the Messiah, Matt. xi. 5. (2.) Till he had done that, not to say any thing of it to any man: this is an instance of the humility of Christ and his self-denial, that he did not seek his own honour, did not strive or cry, Isa. xlii. 2. And it is an example to us, not to seek our own glory, Prov. xxv. 27. He must not proclaim it, because that would much increase the crowd that followed Christ, which he thought was too great already; not as if he were unwilling to do good to all, to as many as came; but he would do it with as little noise as might be, would have no offence given to the government, no disturbance of the public peace, not any thing done that looked like ostentation, or an affecting of popular applause. What to think of the leper’s publishing it, and blazing it abroad, I know not; the concealment of the good characters and good works of good men better become them than their friends; nor are we always bound by the modest commands of humble men. The leper ought to have observed his orders; yet, no doubt, it was with a good design that he proclaimed the cure, and it had no other ill effect than that it increased the multitudes which followed Christ, to that degree, that he could no more openly enter into the city; not upon the account of persecution (there was no danger of that yet,) but because the crowd was so great, that the streets would not hold them, which obliged him to go into desert places, to a mountain (ch. iii. 13), to the sea-side, ch. iv. 1. This shows how expedient it was for us, that Christ should go away, and send the Comforter, for his bodily presence could be but in one place at a time; and those that came to him from every quarter, could not get near him; but by his spiritual presence he is with his people wherever they are, and comes to them to every quarter.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Kneeling down to him ( ). Picturesque detail omitted by some MSS. Lu 5:12 has “fell on his face.”

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

A LEPER HEALED AND,CHARGED, V. 40-45

1) “And there came a leper to Him,” (kai erchetai pros auton lepos) “And a leper comes to or toward Him;- The term “comes to Him,” is a colloquialism of an “Historic past,” presented as if it were “present active,” for purposes of story telling intimacy.

2) “Beseeching Him, and kneeling down to Him,” (parakalon auton kai gonupeton) “Appealing to Him (to motivate Him) and failing on his knees,” before Him, in His presence. He who comes to the Lord in a contrite way is never turned away, Joh 6:37; Psa 51:17.

3) “And saying unto Him,” (legon auto hoti) “Repeatedly saying to Him that,” This is the cry of an outcast, a leper, who by the law was quarantined from public gatherings – – Where it occurred is not told, but perhaps by the roadside.

4) ”If thou wilt, thou canst,” (ean thelesdunasai) “If you are willing, you are able;- The cry, the prayer is that of a desperate soul, despairing of life itself, of isolation from home, from friends, and from society, a type of malady of sin in the sinner, Isa 1:4-6; Isa 1:18.

5) “Make me clean.” (me katharisai) “To cleanse me,” or to make me clean. It is a cry of desperation, yet one of faith. To such cries for deliverance from the malady of sin and its eternal consequence our Lord responds, as He did to David, Psa 40:1-3; to the fallen Samaritan woman, Joh 4:15; Joh 4:26; Joh 4:41-42; and to Saul of Tarsus, Act 9:4-6; Ps 14518, 19.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Mar. 1:44. Say nothing to any man.Our Lord desired to check, as far as possible, the tendency on the part of the populace to regard Him as a mere wonder-worker, because such a reputation would inevitably blind men to the primary object of His Divine mission, which was not the healing of the body, but the salvation of the soul. For a testimony unto them.He would afford the Jewish authorities no pretext for asserting that He set Himself above the law.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mar. 1:40-45

(PARALLELS: Mat. 8:2-4; Luk. 5:12-16.)

A parable in a miracle.Christs miracles are called wondersthat is, deeds which, by their exceptional character, arrest attention and excite surprise. Further, they are called mighty worksthat is, exhibitions of superhuman power. They are still further called signsthat is, tokens of His Divine mission. But they are signs in another sense, being, as it were, parables as well as miracles, and representing on the lower plane of material things the effects of His working on mens spirits. This parabolic aspect of the miracles is obvious in the case before us. Leprosy received exceptional treatment under the Mosaic Law, and the peculiar restrictions to which the sufferer was subjected, as well as the ritual of his cleansing, in the rare cases where the disease wore itself out, are best explained by being considered as symbolical rather than as sanitary. It was taken as an emblem of sin. Its hideous symptoms, its rotting sores, its slow, stealthy, steady progress, its defiance of all known means of cure, made its victim only too faithful a walking image of that worse disease.

I. The lepers cry.Mark connects the story with our Lords first journey through Galilee, which was signalised by many miracles, and had excited much stir and talk. The news of the Healer had reached the isolated huts where the lepers herded, and had kindled a spark of hope in one poor wretch, which emboldened him to break through all regulations and thrust his tainted and unwelcome presence into the shrinking crowd. Marks vivid narrative shows him to us, flinging himself down before the Lord, and, without waiting for question or pause, interrupting whatever was going on with his piteous cry. Misery and wretchedness make short work of conventional politenesses. Note the keen sense of misery that impels to the passionate desire for relief. A leper with the flesh dropping off his bones could not suppose that there was nothing the matter with him. The parallel fails us there. The emblem is all insufficient, for here is the very misery of our deepest misery, that we are unconscious of it, and sometimes even come to love it. The worse we are, the less we know that there is anything the matter with us; and the deeper the leprosy has struck its filthy fangs into us, the more ready we are to say that we are sound. Oh! if the best of us could see himself for once, in the light of God, as the worst of us will see himself one day, the cry would come from the purest lips, O wretched man that I am! who will deliver me from the body of this death? this life in death that I carry, rotting and smelling foul to heaven, about with me, wheresoever I go. Note, further, this mans confidence in Christs power. Thou canst make me clean. He had heard all about the miracles that were being wrought up and down over the country, and he came to the Worker, with nothing of the nature of religious faith in him, but with entire confidence, based upon the report of previous miracles, in Christs ability to heal. If we turn from the emblem to the thing signified, from the leprosy of the body to that of the spirit, we may be sure of Christs omnipotent ability to cleanse from the extremest severity of the disease, however inveterate and chronic it may have become. Sin dominates men by two opposite lies. I have been saying how hard it is to get peoples consciences awakened to see the facts of their moral and religious condition; but then, when they are awoke up, it is almost as hard to keep them from the other extreme. The devil, first of all, says to a man, It is only a little one. Do it; you will be none the worse. You can give it up when you like, you know. That is the language before the act. Afterwards, his language is, first, You have done no harm; never mind what people say about sin. Make yourself comfortable. And then, when that lie wears itself out, the mask is dropped, and this is what is said: I have got you now, and you cannot get away. Done is done! What thou hast written thou hast written; and neither thou nor anybody else can blot it out. Hence the despair into which awakened consciences are apt to drop, and the feeling, which dogs the sense of evil like a spectre, of the hopelessness of all attempts to make oneself better. Brethren, they are both lies: the lie that we are pure is the first; the lie that we are too black to be purified is the second. Christs blood atones for all past sin, and has power to bring forgiveness to every one. Christs vital Spirit will enter into any heart, and, abiding there, has power to make the foulest clean. Note, again, the lepers hesitation: If Thou wilt. He had no right to presume on Christs goodwill. He knew nothing about the principles upon which His miracles were wrought and His mercy extended. But his hesitation is quite as much entreaty as hesitation. He, as it were, throws the responsibility for his health or disease upon Christs shoulders, and thereby makes the strongest appeal to that loving heart. We stand on another level. The lepers hesitation is our certainty. We know that if any men are not healed it is not because Christ will not, but because they will not.

II. The Lords answer.Mark puts the miracle in very small compass, and dilates rather upon the attitude and mind of Christ preparatory to it. Note three thingsthe compassion, the touch, the word. As to the first, is it not a precious gift for us, in the midst of our many wearinesses and sorrows and sicknesses, to have that picture of Jesus Christ bending over the leper, and sending, as it were, a gush of pitying love from His heart to flood away all his miseries? Show Him sorrow, and He answers it by a pity of such a sort that it is restless till it helps and assuages. We may rise higher than even this, for the pity of Jesus Christ is the summit of His revelation of the Father. The Christians God is no impassive Being, indifferent to mankind, but One who in all our afflictions is afflicted, and, in His love and in His pity, redeems and bears and carries. Note, still further, the Lords touch. With swift obedience to the impulse of His pity, Christ thrusts forth His hand and touches the leper. There was much in that; but whatever more we may see in it, we should not be blind to the loving humanity of the act. All men that help their fellows must be contented thus to identify themselves with them and to take them by the hand, if they would deliver them from their evils. Remember, too, that according to the Mosaic Law it was forbidden to any but the priest to touch a leper. Therefore in this act, beautiful as it is in its uncalculated humanity, there may have been something intended of a deeper kind. Our Lord thereby does one of two thingseither He asserts His authority as overriding that of Moses and all his regulations, or He asserts His sacerdotal character. Either way there is a great claim in the act. Still further, we may take that touch of Christs as being a parable of His whole work. It symbolises His identifying of Himself with mankind, the foulest and the most degraded; and in this connexion there is a profound meaning in one of the ordinarily trivial legends of the Rabbis, who, founding upon a word of Isaiah 53, tell us that when Messias comes He will be found sitting amongst the lepers at the gate of the city. So He was numbered amongst the transgressors in His life, and with the wicked in His death. He touches, and, touching, contracts no impurity, cleansing as the sunlight or the fire does, by burning up the impurity, and not by receiving it into Himself. Note the Lords word: I will; be thou clean. It is shaped, convolution for convolution, so to speak, to match the mans prayer. He ever moulds His response according to the feebleness and imperfection of the petitioners faith. But, at the same time, what a ring of autocratic authority and conscious sovereignty there is in the brief, calm, imperative word, I will; be thou clean! He accepts the lepers description of power; He claims to work the miracle by His own will, and therein He is either guilty of what comes very near arrogant blasphemy, or He is rightly claiming for Himself a Divine prerogative. If His word can tell as a force on material things, what is the conclusion? He who speaks and it is done is Almighty and Divine.

III. The immediate cure.Mark tells, with his favourite word, straightway, how, as soon as Christ had spoken, the leprosy departed from him. And to turn from the symbol to the fact, the same sudden and complete cleansing is possible for us. On account of Christs sacrifice, whose efficacy is eternal and lies at the foundation of all our blessedness and our purity until the heavens shall be no more, we are forgiven our sins, and our guilt is taken away. By the present indwelling of that cleansing Spirit of the ever-living Christ, which will be given to us each if we seek it, we are cleansed day by day from our evil. We must come to Christ, and there must be a real living contact between us and Him through our faith, if we are to possess either the forgiveness or the cleansing which is wrapped up inseparable in His gift. Further, the suddenness of this cure and its completeness may be reproduced in us. Trust Him and He will do it. Only remember, it was of no use to the leper that crowds had been healed, that floods of blessing had been poured over the land. What he wanted was that a rill should come into his own garden and flow past his own door and refresh his own lips. And if you want to have Christs cleansing you must make personal work of it, and come with this prayer, Unto me be all that cleansing shown! Or rather you do not need to go to Him with an If nor a prayer, for His gift has not waited for our asking, and He has anticipated us by coming with healing in His wings. The parts are reversed, and He prays you to receive the gift, and stands before each of us with the gentle remonstrance upon His lips, Why will ye die when I am here ready to cure you? Take Him at His word, for He offers to us all, whether we desire it or no, the cleansing which we need.A. Maclaren, D. D.

Mar. 1:40-45. Christs healing touch.What purpose did the touch of Christ serve? Perhaps we shall be helped in replying, if we think of how much tenderness and pathos the Gospel narratives would be deprived if this small feature were taken from them. The touch of Christ seems still to bring Him into contact with humanity; it falls into harmony with the whole story of His condescending sympathy.

I. In touching the sick Christ fixes and confirms faith in Himself as the Healer.It is in condescension to a human weakness that He lays His hands on diseased folk. We believe in little that we cannot see. Pain and sickness are so sensible that we look for equally sensible tokens of the energy of the restorer. Christ came into the world to heal sicknesses; and faith in Him, as Healer, was essential to the cure. By His touch He fixed mens thoughts upon Himself; this was the pledge of healing by which He stimulated and confirmed their faith. Christs touching the sick is then a symbol of that condescension to our weakness in which He still appeals to us, fixing our thoughts upon Himself, revealing His infinite power and ever-gracious purpose, arousing us by some special mode to contemplate what virtue is in Him, but which, without these special revelations, we should fail to see. Miracles themselves are such a condescension; in the miracle Christ touches us, that we may see how entirely and blessedly the universe is under His control. We may see this, too, as one among the reasons of Christs incarnationthe Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, that touched into attention we might behold the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Christ was in God, before God was incarnated in Jesus Christ. The love and sympathy, the reverence and righteousness, the trustiness and truthin one word, the grace that so moves and wins us in Jesus, dwelt in the bosom of the Father from before all worlds. But how could we have ascended up on high to bring Christ down from above? how could our world-dulled eyes have beheld, or our carnal hearts have trusted, the grace that is in our God? It needed to be not simply revealed to us as a heavenly doctrine, but embodied in an earthly form. And so it drew from out the vast and struck its being into bounds. Christian experience, again, will furnish us with many illustrations of the mode in which Christ condescends to our weakness in pursuing His purpose to save us. We none of us believe that there are times and seasons with Him. He is as ready to save us the first hour we hear of Him as He can be at any subsequent time; He waiteth to be gracious unto us, with hand ever stretched out, and with voice ever pleading, Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. And yet how full is Christian biography of instances of Christs falling in with our expectation and using special events, special times, as the mode in which to heal us. The cares of life, the responsibilities of early manhood, the solemnity of parentage, the softening influences of bereavement, the terrors of pestilence, the fear of deathHe makes all these the means of extending His grace to souls. He gives us the very sign we wish for, that we may believe that He is Himself making us whole.

II. See in Christs touch of the sick His answer to our craving for sympathy.Those who have had much to do with the sickwho have seen how, in their tossings to and fro, a hand laid on theirs can quiet themwho have heard them say, Sit there in the light, where I can see youwho remember their restless craving for some token that they are being cared for, how they ask to be turned from side to side, that their pillow be smoothed, or the curtains drawn, or some little attention paid which makes their bed really no easier, but soothes themwill see in the touch of Christ a virtue beyond what it has as the appropriate sign of healing. They will understand that this token of sympathy had much to do with the faith in Himself as Healer, which Christ sought to cherish; for the sick have very little confidence in the power to help them of those who are not tender in their help. Some of us would do well to visit the sick, that we might learn what possibilities of suffering are in man, and be made more thoughtful, more tender-hearted. There was no need of Christs learning such a lesson, no need of awakening His sympathy. But we did need to have that sympathy revealed to us. And here, again, we are met by the wondrous doctrine of the Incarnation. Christ is with us, not only helping us, but feeling with us; knowing exactly how to succour, because He knows exactly how the burden presses on us. How the gospel lights up and fills with meaning such passages as these: Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are but dust. He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye. Mans craving for Gods sympathy is here met, the very craving we are sometimes ready to stigmatise as a weakness. They brought unto Christ infants, that He should touch them; but when His disciples saw it, they rebuked them. What good can a touch do them? Silly mothers to long for, to find any satisfaction in a touch! But Jesus rebuked His disciples, and took the children in His arms and blessed them. There are very many things that, like the touch of the children, do not seem to us of much use, but still we are weak enough to long for them. And we have a Father in heaven who is good enough to meet that weakness. Christ has made us understand the Fatherhood of God. He would have us not stiffly, severely good, but frank and natural with Him. The touch was not needed for healing, but it was a comfort to be touched by Christ; and Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, and said, I will; be thou clean.

III. See in Christs touch the symbol of Christs bearing our infirmities and carrying our sins.This is, after all, the sublimest meaning of our text. He touched our nature in all its pollution; He shrank not from it, but took it upon Himself, and bore its shame and suffering. A thousand will subscribe to a hospital for one who will live with the idiot or deformed; a thousand will pay the doctor and the nurse for one who will enter the cottage of the squalid sick and spend one night there. It needs much schooling of self to suppress the instinct of revolt at sickness hideously before us. Turn now and read of Christ, that He touched the sick and healed them. You will see that in His dealing with bodily disease He did but symbolise how entirely He had taken human sinfulness to Himself.A. Mackennal, D.D.

Mar. 1:43-45. Be silent.

I. This is not at all the command we should have expected; and we cannot but ask, therefore, for the reason of it. Can it be that a very common conception of Christian duty is after all inaccurate and misleading, and that it is not every converts first and great duty to bear verbal witness to the Saviour who has redeemed him? It may be that this is an inaccurate and a misleading conception of Christian duty; and for myself I think it is. But, assuredly, there were other reasons for our Lords prohibition; and it may be well to look at these first.

1. Doubtless one reason why Christ enjoined silence on many of those whom He had healed was, that He did not as yet wish to draw on Himself the public attention. He came not to strive, and cry, and make His voice heard in the streets. He desired to go quietly about His work, sowing seeds of truth and grace which might hereafter bring forth fair fruit abundantly.
2. Another and more special reason in this case was, that He wished the leper to discharge a special duty, viz. to bear a testimony to the priests. As yet they were prejudiced against Jesus of Nazareth. They thought of Him as a zealot, a fanatic, who had swept away corruptions at which they had connived, by which they had profited. Probably they feared that He might set Himself to destroy, rather than to fulfil, the Mosaic Law, or that He might undermine their authority with the people. Now if the leper had done as he was bid, if he had held his peace, if he had gone straight to Jerusalem and told the priests that Jesus had sent him to them in order that they might examine him by the Mosaic tests and say whether he was clean, and if he had taken them the offerings which Moses had commanded the cleansed leper to present before the Lord, he would have carried them a testimony which could hardly have failed to produce a happy effect on their minds. First, his very healing would have testified that Jesus wielded a Divine power, and then the deference of Jesus to the law and to the priesthood would have predisposed them in His favour.
3. But besides these, we cannot but feel that there must be some reason in our common human nature for this constant injunction to silence, that our Lord must have been thinking of the spiritual welfare of men when He forbad them to bear public witness to His marvellous works. One such reason is to be found, I think, in the very different estimate put on miracles by Christ and by the Church. It is only of late years that the more thoughtful students of the Word have come to suspect that miracles are a burden which the gospel has to carry rather than wings of proof which bear it up. But however we may regard them, our Lord and His apostles laid very little stress upon them. To the leper, possibly, nothing was so grand, nothing so desirable, as the power to work miracles; but Jesus knew a more excellent way, and held not love alone, but almost any ethical and spiritual virtue, to be worth far more than tongues, or prophecy, or the faith that can only remove a mountain. For this reason, therefore, among many others, He bade the leper say nothing of the miracle to any man. Consider, too, how religious emotion evaporates in talk, how virtue goes out of us in the words we utter. Is it not always better to obey than to talk about obedience, to show love than to profess love? Obviously, though no doubt he thought to honour Christ by much publishing what He had done, this man was not strong enough for that form of service. To what good end did he honour Christ with his tongue, while he dishonoured, by disobeying, Him in his life? See what harm this leper did, though doubtless he had none but a good intention, what an ill return he made for the grace of Christ. By touching the leper Christ had become a leper, in the eye of the law. The kind hand laid upon him not only healed him, but drew him from the desert into the city, and readmitted him to the society of men. And the leper rewarded his Healer by driving Him out of the city into the desert. Simply because his foolish tongue would wag, Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but was compelled to remain without in desert places. Could we have a more convincing illustration of the danger of disobedience, however pure and generous its motive may seem? Yes, for it is a still more bitter proof when we find that by our own fluent religious talk, and the easy but eager profession by which we honestly meant to serve Christ, we have alienated from Him those who stand nearest to us and know us best.

II. How came this leper to disobey the word of the Lord?This ought not to be a puzzle to you, and could not be if you were thoughtful students of your own hearts. Have you yet to learn that it is much easier to brace oneself for great endeavours than to maintain a faithful discharge of simple and lesser duties? easier to suffer death, for example, in some great cause than to set such a watch over the lips as never to offend? easier to make a great sacrifice for some worthy end than to keep ones temper under the slight frets and provocations which every day brings with it? A great faith is not always a patient and submissive faith. We should also remember into what fatal languors great spiritual excitement is apt to react. The leper who, face to face with Christ, could live or die for Him, but no sooner quits His presence than he cannot even hold his tongue for Him, is but a glass in which we may see ourselves and read a warning against our own peril.S. Cox, D. D.

OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Mar. 1:40. Various attitudes of men towards Christ.In Mar. 1:27 we found men putting questions regarding Christs power; in Mar. 1:40 we find a poor sufferer seeking to avail himself of Christs curative energy. This marks the great difference between various classes of society in relation to the work of the Saviour. One class is content with looking, wondering, and perhaps admiring; another class must test His power in direct personal experience.J. Parker, D. D.

Christ inspires trust.This incident shows the trust which the ministry of the Saviour had inspired in the minds of sufferers, specially so in the case of the leper; the leper lived under the most terrible restrictions, yet his heart rose to the point of trust and love when he heard of the wonderful works of this new Man.Ibid.

Personal faith in Christ.This man did not merely believe that Jesus Christ could cleanse a leper, but that He could cleanse him! It is very easy to believe for other people. There is really no faith in such impersonal, proxy confidence. The true faith believes for itself first, and then for others.

Sickness and the soul.Sicknesses and diseases, says an old writer, are often necessary to the souls health. God knows this better than we; wherefore we ought to resign ourselves into His hands, and not to ask for health and relief absolutely, but conditionally, as it shall please God, and as it shall conduce to our spiritual good.

Mar. 1:40-42. Leprosy.Leprosy was regarded as the symbol of sin and of judgment (Num. 12:10; 2Ki. 5:26; 2Ki. 15:5; 2Ch. 26:20-23); also of inscrutable visitations (Job. 2:7).

2. Recovery from leprosy was regarded as a symbol of salvation, as in the case of Naaman (2Ki. 5:2 : cp. Psa. 51:9, with Lev. 6:7).

3. The uncleanness, the gradual destruction of the system, the disgusting appearance, and the unexpected recovery by a full outbreak of the eruptionand, again, the slow but sure progress of the disease, the isolation of those who were affected by it from the society of the clean, the infectious nature of the trouble, its long duration and hopelessnesspresented a variety of views under which sin and guilt with its consequences and effects, even upon innocent individuals, might be symbolised.J. P. Lange, D.D.

A signal instance of faith in Christ.

1. In the cures wrought by Christ faith was ever the connecting link between cause and effectthe channel which conveyed the healing balm to the festering sorethe medium which brought the saving power of God to bear upon the suffering weakness of man.
2. Faith in the heart was ever accompanied by confession with the mouth and expression in the life. As men believed, so they spoke and acted.

3. This leper came to Jesus, besought Jesus, and confessed his faith in Jesus. So far, he acted like the blind men at Jericho (Mat. 20:29-34), and the father of the child with a dumb spirit (Mar. 9:17-27). But this lepers confession, unlike theirs, was made not in reply to any question put by Christ, but of his own voluntary motion. His soul was as full of faith as his body of leprosy. He had no doubt whatever as to Christs power to heal; yet in his great humility he would not dictate to the Divine Physician, but leave himself entirely in His hands: If Thou art willing, Thou art able to cleanse me.

4. To such an appeal the Saviour had but one answerthe echo of the suppliants cry: I will; be thou clean. And as He uttered these gracious words, to show that He could do what He would, and would do what He could, He put forth His hand, and touched him, and immediately the leprosy departed, etc.

5. Behold that leperas he was, and as he is! The disease, how hopeless: the remedy, how sure: the application of that remedy, how simple: the cure, how speedy and complete! That hopeless disease was leprosy: that sure remedy, the power of Christ: that simple application, faith in Jesus: that swift and effectual cure, a new creation!

Mar. 1:41. Christs touch.The word be clean was sufficient for His healing: why then the touch? What an illustration of Divinity!

1. That He could touch pollution and be undefiled. The water of life is not fouled by the corruption of those who come to drink.
2. This was Divine sympathy. We can almost hear this leper say, Lord, I am unclean, vile, sinful, and separated; no one can even touch me, for fear of pollution; oh, heal me! We can almost feel the thrill as the healing tide responded to the word of Jesus, and the new love, like an electric current, came at His touch. 3. In all Christian work the loving hand should accompany the loving word. John B. Gough says of the man who was permitted to reach him, After twenty years, I can feel the power and love of the hand that was laid upon my shoulder that night. And the world has felt the touch, just as the multitudes who came to be healed felt the word and touch Jesus gave to the leper.

Christs helping hand.Like a sunbeam passing through foul water untarnished and unstained, or like some sweet spring such as travellers tell us rises sometimes in the midst of the salt sea and retains its freshness and pours it over the surrounding bitterness, so Christ takes upon Himself our nature, and lays hold of our stained hands with the hand that continues pure while it grasps us, and will make us purer if we grasp it.

The symbolic teaching of this miracle is thus expressed by Bede: Typically, the leper represents the whole race of man languishing with sins, as this sufferer, full of leprosy, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. By the hand of the Saviour put forththat is, by the Word of God become incarnate and touching human naturethey are cleansed from their old transgression, and are enabled to hear with the apostles the cheering words, Now ye are clean, because of the word which I have spoken unto you; and they who once, as abominable, were excluded from the city of God, are now brought within the Temple, and are presented unto Him who is a priest for ever, and offer for their cleansing their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.

Christ touching the leprosies of humanity.How often, in His human life, Christ repeated in the spirit what He here did in the body! When He ate with the publicans and sinners, endured the kiss of the fallen, sent away uncondemned the penitent adulteress, opened paradise to the dying malefactor, He was again and again touching the leprosies of humanity, touching them that He might make them clean. And when His Church went forth from the upper chamber, in the strength of His unseen presence and His Spirits guidance, and stood before the dying pagan world; when it confronted the hideous profligacy of Corinth or Antioch, and the frivolous scepticism of Athens, and the dark devil-worship of Ephesus, and the coarse brutality of Philippi, and the wild fanaticism of Galatia, and the pitiless cruelties of Rome,then over and over again Christ touched the leper and made him clean; and through the tainted views of that polluted world there flowed out straight from Christ the resistless current of a new and purer life. The history of the first Christian centuries is the fulfilment of that of which this miracle was the shadow and promise.John Ellerton.

The leprosies of modern society.Think of the leprosies of modern English society, which some are afraid to touch, which too many have touched to their sorrow and ruin. Look at that great subject of popular amusements. There is plenty of corruption and disease there. But it is not copying Christ to stand aloof from it all and say, Oh! these things are all so bad, so dangerousthe vice of the drama, the frivolity of fashionable pleasure, the immorality of popular fictionthese are so great, so corrupting, that we must ignore them; they are too bad for us to try to mend them. And it is pitiful when the reaction from this moral cowardice comes, and bright young lives are carried along by pleasure; when with a sort of feeling that they are defying and separating themselves from the good and the serious, they touch that which defiles, and lose their purity of heart, their faith in Christ, their longings to be His for ever. We want men and women to deal with this question of amusement in a spirit of courageous faithto say, These things need not be bad, and ought not to be bad; and if we bring Christs touch upon them, we can and will purify thempurify our social life, our politics, our business, our commerce, our amusements, aye, and our Churches and our religious life too, for they too need the outstretched hand of Christ to make them clean.Ibid.

Dogmatic teaching of verse.This verse was regarded by the early Church as a mine of dogmatic teaching, specially suitable for the confutation of heresy. To Photinus, who taught that Jesus was a mere man and in no sense God, was objected the word, I will, as indicating His claim to possess an almighty will, the power to heal at His own will. To Arius, who taught the inferiority of the Son to the Father, were objected the words, I will; be thou clean, as claiming equality of power. To Manichus, who taught that Jesus did not possess a body in reality, but only in appearance, were objected the words, Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him.

Mar. 1:42. The healing of the leper a sign of hope to the world.

1. The Lord can restore, even where a case seems desperate.
2. He is willing to do it.
3. He does it by entering into fellowship with the sufferings of the world.
4. By His suffering He takes away ours.
5. He separates between sin and its counterpart, misery; thus taking away the strength of sin.J. P. Lange, D. D.

Mar. 1:44. The use and abuse of testimony.There is no doubt real power in personal testimony, but it is quite possible we may lay too much stress upon it; and that is the danger in the present day. The young convert, before he has had any experience, is encouraged to tell forth his story, until there is this dangerthat when the devil of unbelief is driven out, the devil of pride shall enter in, and the man begins to think that he has done something very great in trusting in Jesus. There is very great danger of pressing personal testimony too far. But there is real use of testimony. Our Lord seems to indicate it here: Tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer, etc. It would be far better for you to go to your house in solitude, to think over in silence what God has done for you, and there in your solitary chamber to pour out your thanksgiving to God. There is more real true work done in the stillness of solitude than if you go and publish abroad what Christ has done for you. But there is a testimony you must bring: Go thy way, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded. Not so much go and speak, but go and live; go and shew, not so much go and tell them I am a cleansed man, but let them see the anointed hand, the purified ear. Let them see the life-blood coursing through your veins, and that you have become as a little child, humble and faithful. Go and shew yourself to the priests. And who are they? Those most opposed to My claims, those who hate Me, as the Messiah. Go and shew thyself to My enemies; they will not care for your speaking, but it will be your life that will be a testimony to them. Then go and offer as a gift what Moses commanded. If Moses has told you to sprinkle your hand, your ear, your feetyour ear, your hand, and your foot, and every part of your body must be sanctified not now in obedience to some iron law, but as expressive of your hearts gratitude for what Christ has done for you.E. A. Stuart.

Christs command.What our Prophet commands is no costly offering, no painful penancea delightful service, a surrender which is a relief. That we offer and present our souls and bodies to Himthat we trust our way to Him and say, I will follow Theethat we snatch ourselves away from the old tyrants, from whose hands He has rescued us, and watch against any hint of a return to themthat we be His who has bought us with His blood.

Mar. 1:45. A fault to be guarded against.The healed leper was like those who, out of thankfulness of heart indeed, but yet inconsiderately, neglect the inward commandment of the Holy Spirit, and make too much talk about the grace of God, to their own and others hurt.Von Gerlach.

Imprudence better than apathy.The case of those who in our own days are led to do things of which Christian prudence cannot approve is nearly parallel; they do what is not right, but yet it may be easily believed that their fault is in some cases more easily pardoned than the coldness and apathy of those who undertake to condemn them.Bishop H. Goodwin.

Christs withdrawal.Some have thought of this withdrawal as a kind of Levitical quarantine, in acknowledgment of the ceremonial uncleanness acquired by touching the leper, which became generally known from the report of the latter. Certainly the multitude had no scruples arising from this consideration, and it is more natural to suppose that Christ refrained from openly entering any city in order to avoid the applause of men, and the commotion which, at this moment, His presence would have excited. Those who really desired to be with Him for any high and sufficient reason would follow Him even into the wilderness; but He would not thrust Himself voluntarily into the idle throng, which, for any or no cause, is collected with little notice in a populous town.W. J. Deane.

Retirement from the world.The more a servant of God withdraws himself from the world, the more highly does the world esteem him, and the more likely is it to heed his admonitions.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1

Mar. 1:40-45. Leprosy.As to this disease observe: heat, dryness, and dust predispose to diseases of the skin everywhere, and all these causes are especially operative in Syria. Insufficient food assists their action; and boils and sores are apt to fester and poison the system. Leprosy is a disease found over a large tract of the worlds surface; it is found all round the shores of the Mediterranean, from Syria to Spain, in a virulent form, and in North and South Africa. It was carried to various countries in Europe by those who returned from the Crusades, and became prevalent even in England, in the times when our forefathers had no butcher meat in winter but what was salted, and little vegetable diet with it. In a form less virulent than in Palestine it exists in Norway, where the government supports several hospitals for lepers, and seeks to prevent the spread of the disease by requiring all afflicted with it to liveunmarriedin one or other of these. Probably salt fish in Norway forms the too exclusive food of the poor, as it also probably did in Palestine in the time of Christ. Mrs. Brassey found it in the islands of the Pacific. It is so common in India that when Lord Lawrence took formal possession of Oude, he made the people promise not to burn their widows, nor slay their children (the girls), nor bury alive their lepers.R. Glover.

Leprosy.You remember the story of the leper which Swinburne has woven into one of his most beautiful, most painfully realistic, poems. He tells about a lady at the French Court in the Middle Ages who was stricken with leprosy. She had been courted, flattered, idolised, and almost worshipped for her wit and beauty by the king, princes, and all the royal train, until she was smitten with leprosy. Then her very lovers hunted her forth as a banned and God-forsaken thing; every door in the great city of Paris was slammed in her face; no one would give her a drop of water or piece of bread; the very children spat in her face, and fled from her as a pestilential thing, until a poor clerk, who had loved the great lady a long way off, and had never spoken to her until then, took her to his house for pitys sake, and nursed her until she died, and he was cast out and cursed himself by all the religious world for doing it.J. G. Greenhough.

Mar. 1:40. Growth of sin.The Jews have a tradition about the growth of leprosy, that it began with the walls of a mans house; then, if he did not repent, it entered his clothes, till at last it affected his body. So it is with the growth of sin. It begins with neglect of duty, it may be of prayer, or the warning voice of conscience is unheeded. Habits of sin are formed, till at last the soul that lets God alone is let alone by God.

No if in Jesus.A little girl was awakened to anxiety about her soul at a meeting where the story of the leper was told. Well, this dear little girl, who was anxious, said, I noticed that there was an if in what the man said; but there was no if in what Jesus said. So I went home and took out the if, by my grannys fireside, and I knelt down, and I said, Lord Jesus, Thou canst. Thou wilt make me clean. I give myself to Thee.

Mar. 1:41. Hand-help.You know what it is to feel a mans hand warm within your own; the cheer that comes from a good hand-shake of an honest heart is what?why, it is this: that you feel the friend understands you and gives you hope; the spirit of your friend touches your spirit in the hand-grasp, and that hand-shaking is instinct with life. He might write and say good things, and true and helpful to you, but they did not seem to be half as good and true till he took your hand into his own. Or, again, you have need of a physician, and he writes you a prescription. The medicine does not do half so much good as the visit in which he took your weak hand in his own strong one, and shewed you by the way he held it that he meant to bring you through, God helping him. Yes, hope in the touch of a human hand of love, faith in the touch of a human hand of pity, cheer in the touch of a human hand of powerthis is the doctors gift to his patient, and this was Gods gift in Christ to a poor, sin-weary, leprous world that felt there was need of healthier, happier life, and knew not where to turn for it.H. D. Rawnsley.

Christs answer an exact echo of the request.The echo which the mountain gives back to our cry is, as you must often have noticed, calm and pure and musical, however harsh or dissonant or strained our voice may be. Your cry or shout may rise to a piercing scream; but if you wait and listen, it comes back to you with all the discord and excitement strained out of itcomes back at times with a mystical force and sweetness and purity. And when the leper heard his passionate cry come back from the lips of Christ, must there not have been a heavenly sweetness and power in that gracious echo? Must he not have wondered how his poor words should have suddenly grown instinct with a celestial music and energy?S. Cox, D. D.

Mar. 1:45. Talkativeness a great evil.He that cannot refrain from much speaking is like a city without walls; and less pains in the world a man cannot take than to hold his tongue. Therefore if thou observest this rule in all assemblies, thou shalt seldom err: restrain thy choler; hearken much, and speak little; for the tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and greatest evil that is done in the world (Job. 2:10; Jas. 1:19; Jas. 1:26).Sir W. Raleigh.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(40-43) And there came a leper.See Notes on Mat. 8:1-4. The miracle appears in St. Matthew as following closely on the Sermon on the Mount.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

29. HEALING OF A LEPER, Mar 1:40-45 .

(See notes on Mat 8:2-4.)

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And there comes to him a leper, pleading with him and kneeling down to him, and saying to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”

The disease would be some dreadful creeping skin disease, not necessarily strictly modern leprosy (see Lev 13:1-59), although such leprosy (Hansen’s disease) was known in Palestine. All such diseases were so feared that the person was excluded from the community. People would shudder when they saw a skin diseased person, and scurry away. Such a person was forbidden to enter a dwelling place, and had to cry ‘Unclean’ as a warning to others as he walked about (Lev 13:45). He was expected to keep away from people generally, and from any religious ritual observance, carrying out his religious obligations by means of others acting for him. He was excluded from the Temple. He was permanently ritually unclean. To touch him was to incur ritual uncleanness which had to be appropriately and lengthily dealt with. So he was excluded by man from society, and seen as religiously unacceptable.

Thus even his approach to Jesus put him in the wrong. He knew that he had no right to make such an approach, indeed was forbidden to do so. But understandably he was desperate. And he had heard wonderful things about this Man. So he approached Him and fell on his knees before Him. This was an acknowledgement that He saw Him as special, probably as ‘a man of God’ filled with the power of God (2Ki 1:13). No doubt by his action of humility he hoped to escape the rebuke that he deserved. But Mark probably intended his readers to see in his kneeling an indication of Who Jesus really is, the Son of God.

‘If you will, you can make me clean.’ He has a God-given confidence that this Man can do the impossible. He is not expressing doubt about whether Jesus is willing to do it but confidence in what He can do. That is why he has plucked up his courage and come. It is a plea for help. Notice his desire, to be made ‘clean’. This is the thing above all that hurts him so deeply, not so much the dreadful disfigurement, but being unable to approach God’s house and being unable to be in contact with fellow human beings.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jesus Reveals His Power and Authority to Make Clean (1:40-45).

Here Jesus power and authority is revealed in no uncertain fashion. Firstly because He overrides the law of uncleanness. And secondly because He heals the skin diseased man visibly in the sight of all. The incident is also important because it stresses that Jesus faithfully observed the teaching of the Law in commanding the man to fulfil its requirements.

We must not underestimate Jesus’ approach to this disease, nor the lesson that it brings home. To touch such a person was normally to be rendered ritually unclean. A Pharisee would usually take the utmost precautions against even the remotest chance of doing so, and the skin-diseased person himself was seen as having a firm responsibility to ensure that he had no contact with others who were not unclean. And yet Jesus deliberately chose to touch him. He could have healed him at a word, so why then did He touch him? The answer is that it was because it was a gesture of supreme religious authority. By it He was claiming that He could not be rendered unclean by His contact with the skin-diseased man because as the Holy One of God (Mar 1:24) He was the source of all cleanness (the title has prepared for this incident). Rather than He himself being made unclean by the touch, cleanness passed from Him to the skin-diseased man. In any other person the claim would immediately have been dismissed. But what could be said of a case where the disease simply disappeared before their eyes? Here truly was One Who could make clean.

Analysis of 1:40-45.

a And there comes to him a skin-diseased man, pleading with him and kneeling down to him, and saying to him, “If you will, you can make me clean” (Mar 1:40).

b And being stirred to his very depths he stretched forth his hand, and touched him, and says, “I will, be made clean” (Mar 1:41).

c And immediately the skin disease left him and he was made clean (Mar 1:42).

b And he sternly charged him, and immediately sent him away, and says to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go your way, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing the things that Moses commanded for a testimony to them” (Mar 1:43-44).

a But he went out and began to proclaim the story in detail and to spread abroad the matter in so much that he could no more openly enter into a town, but was outside in desert places. And they came to him from every quarter (Mar 1:45).

Note that in ‘a’ the skin-diseased man approaches Him in his illness, and in the parallel goes out from His presence proclaiming his wholeness. In ‘b’ Jesus speaks the word of cleansing, and in the parallel commands him to go to the priests and do what is necessary to certify his new cleanness. Centrally in ‘c’ the skin disease leaves him and he is made clean.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Six Incidents In The Life of Jesus Which Reveal His Unique Power and Authority and Lead to the Pharisees Plotting Against Him (1:40-3:6).

Jesus’ ministry having been established, and the presence of the Kingly Rule of God having been demonstrated by His power to cast out unclean spirits and heal, we are now presented with a series of incidents which reveal more of Who He is. Through them the glory of Jesus and Who He is, is brought out. The subsection commences with the healing of a seriously skin-diseased man. Such a man was an outcast from society and no one would go near him, or expected him to come near them. But attracted by what he had heard the man seeks out this new prophet. He no doubt remembered how another great prophet, Elisha, had helped Naaman so long ago (2 Kings 5), and felt that a new Elisha might be here. Jesus will later use this incident, among others, in order to demonstrate that He is the Coming One (Mat 11:5).

This is then followed by a series of incidents in which He reveals His authority on earth as the Son of Man to forgive sins (Mar 2:1-12), demonstrates that even the outcasts are welcome to come to Him for healing of soul because He is the Healer of men’s souls (Mar 2:13-17), calls on all to recognise the joy that there should be because of His coming as the Heavenly Bridegroom in order to establish something totally new (Mar 2:18-22), reveals that as the Son of Man He has authority over the Sabbath (Mar 2:23-28), and publicly heals the man whose arm is withered on the Sabbath day, revealing that He has come as the Restorer (Mar 3:1-6). In all this He was challenging the norms on which Jewish society was based, which were that the ‘unclean’ had to be avoided, forgiveness was the prerogative of God alone, outcasts and sinners were best avoided and had to be ostracised, pious men were to evidence it by fasting and mourning, and the Sabbath was to be honoured according to the letter of the Scribes and Pharisees, with the needs of men taking a very subsidiary place. But Jesus brings out that He is turning everything upside down. He makes clean the unclean with a word, He forgives the unforgiven, He meets up with outcasts and sinners who have demonstrated repentance, He declares that because He is here it is not a time for fasting, and He brings compassion into the interpretation of the Sabbath Law on the grounds that the purpose of the Sabbath is to benefit man, not in order to be a sign of piety. And all this because the old is past and the new has come, and because He has come the introducer of a new age in which the needy are important.

It will be noted in passing that following the incident of the skin-diseased man we have five incidents from the life of Jesus. which all follow a literary a similar pattern, that of commencing with an incident which then leads on to a final saying. These may well have been patterned on a regular presentation of the oral tradition used in the churches which had been provided by Peter or the other Apostles.

Analysis 1:40-3:6.

This whole subsection may be analysed as follows:

a Jesus heals a leper with a touch and a word and sends him as a testimony to the priests in Jerusalem (Mar 1:40-45).

b The healing of a paralytic – the Scribes criticise Jesus for declaring that the man’s sins are forgiven and learn that ‘the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins’ (Mar 2:1-12).

c The ‘astonishing’ immediate calling of Levi, an outcast public servant, to be a disciple (Mar 2:13).

d Jesus and His disciples feast in Levi’s house along with many public servants and sinners, and the Pharisees grumble (Mar 2:14-16).

e Jesus makes clear that He has come as the Healer of those who acknowledge that they are ‘sick’, that is, not of those who claim to be righteous but of those who acknowledge themselves as sinners (Mar 2:17).

d The disciples of John and the Pharisees fast, and they grumble because Jesus’ disciples do not fast, at which Jesus points out that because He has come as the Bridegroom they should not fast because it is a time of rejoicing, for He is introducing something so totally new and incompatible with the old that fasting would be out of place (Mar 2:18-20).

c He illustrates the fact that the new ways have come to replace the old (Mar 2:21-22).

b The Pharisees criticise Jesus’ disciples for eating in the grainfields on the Sabbath and learn that ‘the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath’ (Mar 2:23-28).

a Jesus heals the man with a withered hand with a word, as a testimony to the Pharisees (Mar 3:1-6).

Note that in ‘a’ a sin diseased man is healed, who is a picture of the need of Israel, and in the parallel a man with a withered hand is healed who is also a picture of the need of Israel. The first contains a message to the Jerusalem priesthood, the second a message to the attendant Pharisees, that the Healer and Restorer of men is here. In ‘b’ He reveals Himself as the Son of Man Who forgives sins on earth, and in the parallel as the Son of Man Who is Lord of the Sabbath. In ‘c’ Jesus calls to be a disciple an outcast from Jewish society, and in the parallel points out that He has come to introduce a world with new attitudes. In ‘d’ Jesus and His disciples feast because the new age is here, and in the parallel the disciples of John and the Pharisees fast because they are still in the old age. Centrally Jesus has come as a Physician to make whole those who are spiritually sick.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jesus Heals a Leper ( Mat 8:1-4 , Luk 5:12-16 ) Mar 1:40-45 gives us the account of Jesus cleansing a leper.

Mar 1:45 Comments – When Jesus began His ministry, He tried to keep certain matters silent, like His identity. The reason is so that He could enter a city in order to preach and heal the lepers and sick ones because of the crowds that it created. Also, note Mat 12:15-21 for the reason. It was to fulfill a prophecy in Isa 42:1-4.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Mar 1:40-45 . Comp. on Mat 8:2-4 , where this history follows immediately after the sermon on the Mount, and that in a shorter, more comprehensive form in accordance with Mark. In Luke (Mar 5:12 ff.) the narrative of the draught of fishes is previously inserted.

] see on Mat 17:14 .

Mar 1:41 . [60] . ] subordinated to the participle ; see Winer, p. 308 [E. T. 433]; Dissen, ad Dem. de Cor. p. 249.

Mar 1:42 . ] so also Luke. But he has omitted the following . . , to which Matthew has adhered.

Mar 1:43 . . after He had been angry at him , wrathfully addressed him (comp. Mar 14:5 , and on Mat 9:30 ). We are to conceive of a vehement begone now! away hence ! With this is connected also the forcible . Observe the peculiar way in which Mark depicts how Jesus with very earnest zeal desired and urged the departure of the man that was healed. Moreover, the statement that the cure took place in a house ( ) is peculiar to Mark, who in the entire narrative is very original and cannot be following the colourless narrative of Luke (Bleek). It is true that, according to Lev 13:46 , comp. Num 5:2 , lepers were forbidden to enter into a house belonging to other people (see Ewald in loc. , and Alterth. p. 180); but the impulse towards Jesus and His aid caused the sick man to break through the barrier of the law, whence, moreover, may be explained the hurried and vehement deportment of Jesus.

Mar 1:44 . As to the prohibition, see on Mat 8:4 , and on Mar 5:43 .

The prefixing of ( thyself ) is in keeping with the emotion, with which the withdrawal of the person is required.

. on account of thy cleansing, i.e. in order to become Levitically clean.

Mar 1:45 . Comp. Luk 5:15 f. Mark has peculiar matter.

] from the house. Comp. Mar 1:43 .

] , , Euthymius Zigabenus. The beginning of this breach of the imposed silence is made prominent.

] Euthymius Zigabenus: , , . So also Fritzsche. But Mark, in order to be intelligible, must have led men to this by a more precise designation pointing back to it. It is the story , i.e. the narrative of the occurrence (Luther appropriately has the history ), not: the matter (so usually; even de Wette and Bleek), which in the N. T. never directly means (not even at Mar 2:2 , Mar 8:32 ; Luk 1:4 ; Act 10:36 ); as, indeed, also in classical writers (see Wolf, ad Dem. Lept. p. 277) it never absolutely means the matter in itself, but the point spoken of , the state of things that is under discussion , or the like. As to the distinction between and , see Bremi, ad Isocr. Paneg. p. 32.

] no longer, as He could hitherto.

] moral possibility, if, namely, He would not occasion any tumult.

] not: and yet (Kuinoel, de Wette, Bleek, and others), but the simple and . Instead of going publicly into the city, He was outside in solitary places, and people came to Him from all quarters. A simple account of what was connected with His sojourn in the solitude; He did not withdraw from this concourse, but He would not excite any sensation in the city .

[60] If the leper had come to Jesus when he was already substantially healed, as Schenkel in spite of ver. 45 thinks probable, what charlatanry would the Lord have been practising at ver. 41 f.! And yet, even according to Schenkel (p. 373), Mark is assumed to have had the narrative from the mouth of Peter.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

2. The Touching of the Leper, and the Return into the Wilderness. Mar 1:40-45

(Parallels: Mat 8:1-4; Luk 5:12-16)

40And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him,16 and41saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus,17 moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. 42And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was 43, 44 cleansed. And he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away; And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimonyunto them. 45But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Respecting this narrative, and the leper, see on Mat 8:1-13. The occurrence follows the Sermon on the Mount; and this is here intimated by the return of Jesus to Capernaum, Mar 2:1.

Mar 1:43. And He straitly charged him.The is the opposite of the preceding . Probably the leper had overstepped the limits of his discipline (lepers were not suffered to intrude into others houses) and of the law, and had penetrated to the house where Jesus might have been tarrying in one of the towns. This Meyer reasonably infers from the He forthwith sent him away. First of all, Jesus regarded the misery of the case, and, seized with compassion, healed the sick man. But then He proceeded to guard the legal obligation under which the sick man stood, and household rights and general order. Mark gives us a vivid view of the sending away of the healed man, and exhibits the scene in his own lively expressions.

Mar 1:44. To the priest.The Vulgate, romanizing, explains: Principi sacerdotum. But it only means the priest in general, whose function concerned the man.For a testimony unto them.The actual cleansing must be confirmed in a Levitically legal manner.

Mar 1:45. To blaze abroad the matter, Fritzsche: The word of Jesus. De Wette: The matter. Meyer: The narrative of what had passed. There is implied, perhaps, a distinction between his narrative and the embellished report of the event which was spread abroad, and to which it gave occasion.Could no more openly enter.The reason of this withdrawal was not merely to obviate the increase of the crowd, but the fact that Jesus had touched the leper, which, according to the law, made a man unclean for a season. See Leben Jesu, ii. 2, 639. Moreover, this solitude imported a new withdrawal for a new advance.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

See Com. on Matthew, in loc.

1. Wherefore does Mark close the delineation of Christs first manifestation in public with the healing of the leper? This narrative is, first, a witness that Christ entered into the fellowship of sinners in order to suffer for them; and so far was a prelude of the end. Secondly, it marked His relation to traditionalism, the offence and assaults of which now follow.
2. The present withdrawal of Jesus took place under the presentiment of His conflicts with traditionalism, and as a preparation to meet them.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The healing of the leper a testimony of the mightily cleansing purity of Christ.Christ even in the influence of His purity the Lion of Judah.Redemption, like creation, an omnipotent Let there be! (He speaks, and it is done: I will, be thou clean.)The need of deliverance breaking through the law. The leper presses into the house, like the paralytic through the roof, and the sinner into the Pharisees house.The leper a pattern of those who seek help, but not of those who give thanks: 1. His perfect trust and humble submission (If Thou wilt, etc.); 2. regardlessness of his friends, lack of docility towards the ceremonial law and of discipline.Christs interchange with the leper a symbol of His interchange with the sinner: He makes the leper clean, and contracts Levitical defilement. So Christ was made sin for us, that we might be made righteousness in Him.The compassion of our Lord the source of our salvation.The miraculous hand of Christ the instrument of all heavenly healing: 1. As delivering, 2. as distributing, 3. as consummating.The disobedience of the leper; or, lack of ceremonial discipline in the reception of healing: 1. Excusable as far as it was the interchange of illegality and freedom; 2. blamable, because he constrained the Lord (even in His Church) to atone for transitory illegality by the legalities of prudence.Christ in the wilderness and everywhere the centre of a wretched and needy world.Christ, through His divine compassion, involved with human traditions.A new collectedness of the spirit, a new blessing and victory.

Starke:The spiritual leper.Quesnel:Prayer, humility, and faith as the source (the organs for the reception) of all righteousness.We are directed to keep all right ordinances, etc. Abide by the public service of God.Deliverance from misery demands its right and peculiar offerings of praise.The more a servant of God withdraws himself from the world, the more highly does the world esteem him.

Gerlach:The healed leper was like those who, out of thankfulness of heart indeed, but yet inconsiderately, neglect the inward commandment of the Holy Spirit, and make too much talk about the grace of God, to their own and others hurt.Schleiermacher:The Redeemer by His touch took away the ban which sundered the leper from all human intercourse.Likeness between leprosy and sin.The one leper and the ten.Bauer:How Jesus respected the ordinances of His people.

Footnotes:

[14]Mar 1:38.The Rec. omits after : it is supported by B., C., L., Copt., Tischendorf.

[15]Mar 1:39.Into their: in A., B., D., Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf. The Textus Receptus reads ,an emendation, says Meyer.

[16]Mar 1:40.The omission of in B., D., and Lachmann and Tischendorf, is not sufficiently supported.

[17]Mar 1:41. omitted in B., D., &c. So Lachmann, Tischendorf. Meyer explains this omission, as also the dropping out of , Mar 1:42, from an intention to conform the text with Matthew and Luke. So also with the Mar 1:44.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

(40) And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. (41) And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will: be thou clean. (42) And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. (43) And he straightly charged him, and forth with sent him away; (44) And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. (45) But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.

The case of this leper is so fully considered, Mat 8:1-4 . that it were unnecessary, in this place, to add anything upon the subject.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

40 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

Ver. 40. Beseeching him, &c. ] Morbi virtutum officina, saith Ambrose. We are best when we are worst, saith another. Therefore King Alured prayed God to send him always some sickness.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

40 45. ] CLEANSING OF A LEPER. Mat 8:2-4 .Luk 5:12-14Luk 5:12-14 . The account here is the fullest, and evidently an original one, from an eye-witness. St. Luke mentions ( Mar 1:15 ) the spreading of the fame of Jesus, without assigning the cause as in our Mar 1:45 . See note on Matt.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mar 1:40-45 . The leper (Mat 8:1-4 ; Luk 5:12-16 ).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mar 1:40 . , etc., and there cometh to Him, historic present as so often; where this happened not said, probably an incident of the preaching tour; “in one of the cities,” says Lk. .: the leper has seen or heard enough of Christ’s healing ministry to be sure as to the power . He doubts the will, naturally from the nature of the disease, especially if it be the first cure of the kind, or the first so far as the man knows.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mar 1:40-45

40And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” 41Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” 42Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. 43And He sternly warned him and immediately sent him away, 44and He said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” 45But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around, to such an extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city, but stayed out in unpopulated areas; and they were coming to Him from everywhere.

Mar 1:40 “a leper” This is paralleled in Mat 8:2-4 and Luk 5:12-16. Judaism saw leprosy as an illness inflicted by God (cf. 2Ch 26:16-21). Contact with the leper would make one ceremonially unclean. This disease meant total social alienation! It is culturally surprising that this socially ostracized person approached Jesus and that Jesus would touch him (cf. Mar 1:41). The OT disease called leprosy, discussed in Leviticus 13-14, describes many types of skin diseases, all of which excluded one from worship.

“on his knees” In Luk 5:12 it says he fell prostrate before Jesus. Jesus was not like the other rabbis. He took time to care for the outcast and ostracized.

“‘If you are willing, You can make me clean'” This is a third class conditional sentence which means potential action. He was not doubting Jesus’ power (i.e., the leper calls Jesus “Lord” in Mat 8:2), but His desire to act.

Mar 1:41 “Moved with compassion” Jesus cares for humanity made in the image of God. The Western Text, MS D, has “indignant,” but MSS , A, B, and C have “pity.” The words are similar in Aramaic. Although the oldest and best manuscripts have “pity” the most unusual reading would have been “indignant” or “angry.” See Appendix Two on Textual Criticism. There are several other places in Mark where Jesus’ anger is recorded in unexpected contexts (cf. Mar 1:43; Mar 3:5; Mar 10:14; also one in Joh 11:33; Joh 11:38). His anger may have been directed at the disease or the evil of this age.

Mark portrays Jesus as fully human, feeling and expressing the full range of human emotions, for Himself as well as others.

1. pity or anger (Mar 1:41; Mar 3:5)

2. physical hunger (Mar 2:25)

3. deep sigh (Mar 7:34; Mar 8:12)

4. indignance/sternness (Mar 10:14)

5. love (Mar 10:21)

6. grief/trouble (Mar 10:33-34)

7. desertion (Mar 15:34)

8. thirst (Mar 15:36)

“touched him” This was a ceremonial “no! no!” Jesus touching people is a common occurrence in the Gospels (cf. Mar 7:33; Mar 8:22; Mar 10:13; also several times people touched Jesus, e.g. Mar 3:10; Mar 5:22-28; Mar 5:30-31; Mar 6:56) as a gesture of personal care and concern.

“‘be cleansed'” This is an aorist passive imperative. Jesus heals with the same personal authority by which He expels demons.

Mar 1:43 “sternly warned him” Literally this is “snorted,” which means an inarticulate groan. This reflects Mark’s Messianic Secret. The Gospel was not yet finished, and the message was still incomplete. Jesus did not want to be known as a miracle worker.

“immediately sent him away” This is the same strong word used of the Spirit driving Jesus into wilderness (cf. Mar 1:12).

Mar 1:44 “‘offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded'” This requirement related to the healing of leprosy (cf. Leviticus 13, 14; Deu 24:8). Jesus did not reject the OT (cf. Mat 5:17-19), but the oral traditions that had developed within Judaism (cf. Mat 5:21-48). Possibly this was also for a witness to the priests.

Mar 1:45 “proclaim” This is a present infinitive. This was in direct disobedience to Jesus’ strong request (cf. Mar 1:43-44).

“stayed out in unpopulated areas” This referred to the uninhabited pasture lands like Mar 1:3.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

a leper. See note on Exo 4:6.

to. Greek. pros. App-104.

If Thou wilt. A condition of uncertainty with probability. App-118.

wilt. Greek. thelo. App-102.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

40-45.] CLEANSING OF A LEPER. Mat 8:2-4. Luk 5:12-14. The account here is the fullest, and evidently an original one, from an eye-witness. St. Luke mentions (Mar 1:15) the spreading of the fame of Jesus, without assigning the cause as in our Mar 1:45. See note on Matt.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mar 1:40-45

7. JESUS HEALS A LEPER

Mar 1:40-45

(Mat 8:2-4; Luk 5:12-16)

40 And there cometh to him a leper,–“A man full of leprosy.” (Luk 5:12.) One of the greatest unfortunates the world contains physically. This awful disease demands special notice, for a description of which consult Lev 13:1-46, where a variety of symptoms and manifestations are described. God selected this disease as a type of sin.

beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.–That is, “Thou canst completely heal my leprosy.” According to Matthew he called him “Lord,” but the term was used with much latitude. The clearness of faith shown by his words we must notice. His only doubt is as to Christ’s willingness, but the words do not imply strong doubt even of this.

41 And being moved with compassion,–This expresses the Savior’s feelings of pity. We may be assured that he looks on no scene of suffering without deep sympathy. If thus tenderly compassionate to the type of the sinner, how much more to the more wretched antitype?

he stretched forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou made clean.–Jesus is just as compassionate now as ever. He will be as sympathizing with us as with the poor leper. If you are not saved through him it will not be because he is not willing, but because you are not.

42 And straightway the leprosy departed from him, and he was made clean.–The offensive appearance was all gone on the instant, and his flesh was like the flesh of those about him. The certainty and suddenness of the cure without means was a proof of his Messiahship. Jesus not only showed a willingness but power and authority. The instruction which this miracle gives us is that our soul is overspread with the leprosy of sin, and that we must apply for help to the healing power and recovering grace of this same Jesus. His blood is our remedy. We appropriate its cleansing power to ourselves by complying with all conditions upon which salvation is promised in the gospel.

43 And he strictly charged him, and straightway sent him out,–It was characteristic of the miracles of Christ that they were neither preceded nor followed by unnecessary words or acts, but as soon as the desired change was wrought, the subject was dismissed to make way for another. Peter’s mother-in-law instantly returned to her household duties (verse 31) without any interval of convalescence. So the leper is no sooner healed than he is sent away.

44 and saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man:–He was not to talk about being healed to any one except the priest. Our Lord frequently gave such prohibition. (5:43; 7:36.) His reasons for doing so varied according to circumstances.

but go show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing the things which Moses commanded,–That is, for his ceremonial cleansing, in order that he might be officially declared free of the disease. This was the duty of subjecting himself to the inspection of a priest and making the offering Moses commanded. While Christ was Lord also of the law, yet he required the man to make the offerings prescribed in the Mosaic law for such occasions. (Lev 14:1-12.)

for a testimony unto them.–Unto whom? Meyer says “Unto the people that thou art healed.” Crysostom says “For a testimony that I do not destroy the law.” We do not think either the true meaning. If the man shall go to the priest, be pronounced clean, offer the sacrifices and be restored to his family, whenever the question of the claims of Jesus shall arise, all this will be a “testimony unto them,” which will also be a testimony against them if they reject him. Prior to this the priest had pronounced him unclean, and had cast him out of the congregation, and now the priest must pronounce him clean and restore him to society.

45 But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to spread abroad the matter,–He gives vent to his joy not realizing the importance of obeying his Lord in the matter. He was so deeply affected and overjoyed with the cure that he followed the dictates of his own feelings rather than the command of his Lord.

Probably his intentions were good, but his disobedience to Christ’s command was a fault and shows the weakness in human nature in following the dictates of human feelings rather than obeying exactly what the Lord commands. He might have felt that he was honoring Christ, but it is a sin to do anything against the command of Christ, though with ever so good a meaning, purpose, and intention to exalt and honor him. Christ can never be exalted and honored save through his own appointments. He can never be honored and exalted through the appointments and institutions of men. These are only parasites sucking the life’s blood out of the appointments and institutions ordained of God and sealed by the blood of his Son. Whether the healed man went to the priest at all is no record.

insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but was without in desert places:–Any city. Perhaps on account of a false report of a legal defilement contracted by his contact with the leper, which had made scandal, or perhaps on account of the disturbance made by the crowds which thronged around him.

and they came to him from every quarter.–Every quarter of Galilee. Out in the wilderness the great throngs could incommode no one but themselves. So the fame of Jesus is spreading in ever-widening circles.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

the Friend of Sinners

Mar 1:40-45; Mar 2:1-22

The leper, Mar 1:40-45. The news of Christ spread fast and far until it reached the outcasts from Jewish society, the very dregs of humanity. As the story of the wonderful miracles wrought by our Lord was pondered deeply by this man, He concluded that the only question which remained was that of Christs willingness to hear. As to His power there could be no doubt. But no one of all the religious world of that time had ever thought of extending a helping hand to such as he. Note the instantaneousness of our Lords response to this appeal. His love and power are commensurate; when you gauge the one, you have measured the other.

The paralytic, Mar 2:1-12. The disease had resulted from sin. It was necessary to deal with the soul before the body could be emancipated. As soon as we sin, Gods pardon awaits our asking for it, and of this fact our Lord gave the paralytic man definite assurance. Jesus right to speak was evidenced by His power to heal. If the latter was effectual, so was the former.

The sinners friend, Mar 2:13-22. They thought to coin a term of reproach, but they added a crown of glory. In eternity the Friend of sinners will surround His table with saved sinners who have become His guests.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 6

How can A Sinner Obtain Mercy?

And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. And he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away; And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.

Mar 1:40-45

Here is an unclean leper seeking mercy from the hands of Christ. And he obtained mercy. The Lord made him whole. If there is a sinner, like the leper, unclean, hopeless, helpless, friendless, and alone who reads these lines, I want you to know that there is hope for sinners like you in Christ. The man who writes them is such a sinner; and when I read about this leper and the mercy he obtained from the Lord Jesus, I think to myself, If one has been made whole, why not another? Does God forgive sin, then why not my sin? Does God justify the ungodly, then why not me? Does Christ receive sinners, then why not me? Is there mercy with the Lord for the guilty, then why not for me? Did Christ die for sinners, then why not for me? Does God save the unrighteous, then why not me?

If we would obtain mercy, we must seek mercy like this poor leper, from the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let every saved sinner, as he reads again of Gods free, saving grace in Christ, remember and rejoice in what the Lord has done for him by his matchless, free, and sovereign grace in Christ Jesus. Let every poor, lost soul, whose uncleanness before God causes him to crave the cleansing that Christ alone can give, look to the Son of God by faith.

Deep Sense of Need

This poor wretch came to the Lord Jesus with a deep sense of his need. We do not read anything else in the Bible about the history of this man. We do not know who his parents were, where he was from, how old he was, or what became of him. He seems to be set before us for one reason – He shows us how a sinner must come to the Lord, if he would have mercy. And the first thing is this: If you would obtain mercy from Christ, you must come to him because you need him. No sinner will ever come to Christ in faith until God the Holy Spirit creates in him a sense of his need. No one seeks mercy until he needs mercy.

You are all familiar with what leprosy is and what it represents. Leprosy was a loathsome disease, common during the days of our Lords earthly ministry. It was a disease so peculiar that it was always considered a mark of divine displeasure on those who were afflicted with it (Num 12:10; 2Ki 5:27; 2Ch 26:19). Because they were ceremonially unclean, lepers were not allowed to walk in the company of others, or come into the house of God.

Leprosy fitly represents the plague of sin with which sons of Adam are diseased. It is to the body what sin is to the soul. Mr. Thomson in his famous work, The Land and the Book, describes lepers in Israel like this: The hair falls from the head and eyebrows. The nails loosen, decay, and drop off. Joint after joint of the fingers and toes shrink up and slowly fall away. The gums are absorbed, and the teeth disappear. The nose, the eyes, the tongue, and the palate are slowly consumed. The leper was a loathsome, miserable, outcast creature. He was walking death.

Leprosy, like sin, was a loathsome, unclean disease. Leprosy, like sin, was (by human means) an incurable disease. Leprosy, like sin, was a consuming disease. Leprosy, like sin, was the sure forerunner of death.

The man here held before us by the Spirit of God had a keen sense of his desperate need. Here is a man whose body was covered from head to toe with leprosy. His disease was always before him. There was no hiding it. His body was covered with ulcers oozing with a liquid of sickening smell. His body was racked with pain. Luke tells us that he was full of leprosy. He knew that he needed help. He needed supernatural, merciful, divine help. He needed the help of God. Without it, he would surely die.

This is the very reason men and women do not come to Christ. They do not have any sense of need. They do not know their need of Christ. But when the plague of sin in a mans heart causes his very soul to burn with fever, when the sinners knows he is lost, helpless, unclean, and doomed, that without Christ he must surely die, he seeks him.

Christ alone has power to heal our souls. This was portrayed in the ceremonial law (Leviticus 14). But the cleansing of grace is found only in Christ (Eze 36:25; 1 John 7-9). His blood alone can cleanse the leprous soul. His mercy alone can save. Christ alone can make the unclean clean and righteous before God.

Those who know their need of mercy will soon obtain mercy.

All the fitness he requireth

Is to feel your need of Him.

And it is the work of God the Holy Spirit that makes us know our need of Christ. Robert Hawker wrote, This poor creature, which came to Jesus, is the representative of every poor sinner, when convinced of the leprosy of sin, from the teaching of God the Holy Ghost. Such an one is convinced of Christs ability, because God the Spirit hath taught him who Christ is, and what Christ is able to perform. Joseph Hart gives us the same thing in one of his great hymn…

What comfort can a Savior bring

To those who never felt their woe?

A sinner is a sacred thing;

The Holy Ghost hath made him so.

New life from Him we must receive,

Before for sin we rightly grieve.

This faithful saying let us own,

Well worthy tis to be believed,

That Christ into the world came down,

That sinners might by Him be saved.

Sinners are high in His esteem.

Utter Humiliation

This leper came to the Lord Jesus in utter humiliation. Matthew tells us he came worshipping. Luke says that, Seeing Jesus, he fell on his face. Mark tells us that he came kneeling. That is just the way sinners must come to the Savior, kneeling and falling on their face at his feet, worshipping! The sinner must come down, down from his pride, down from his self-righteousness, down from his self-sufficiency! He must come down in his own eyes, down, down, down, all the way down to the feet of Christ (Luk 18:9-14).

If ever we see who and what we are, we will come down. You and I are poor sons and daughters of Adam, full of uncleanness, cursed, condemned, and ready to die. We are utterly helpless, and completely unworthy of Gods slightest notice.

If ever we see who Christ is and what he is, we will come down. He is holy, righteous, and true. He is a God full of mercy, love, and compassion. He is a God able and willing to save. He is a Fountain opened for cleansing. He is God, whose glory it is to forgive sin.

And God knows how to bring sinners down to the feet of his Son. Psalms 107 is a song of praise to God for his wondrous work of providence, by which he brings chosen sinners down. But providence alone will not cause sinners to seek the Lord. God brings sinners down by causing his holy law to enter their hearts, exposing their sin, pronouncing their uncleanness, and declaring their guilt (Rom 7:9). And God brings sinners down by the gospel, by revealing Christ to them and in them (Zec 12:10; Gal 1:15-16).

Do you feel your desperate need of Christ? Has your heart been broken and humbled at the feet of Christ? Are you sweetly compelled, like Job, to cry, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:5-6)?

Great and Weak Faith

This poor leper came to the Lord Jesus in very weak faith, but faith that obtained great grace. And that makes the weakest faith great faith (Heb 11:6). I do not know how he came to have faith in Christ. Perhaps he had heard our Lord preach. Perhaps he was familiar with the Old Testament prophets. Perhaps he had heard the fame of our Lord from others. But this much is certain: He knew who Christ was. He believed his claims. And he came to the Savior in faith, because God the Holy Spirit had given him faith in Christ (Eph 2:8; Col 1:12).

The leper came to the Lord by himself. Others had been led to Christ by one of his disciples, but not this man. Others had been picked up and brought to the Lord, but not the leper. Others, who could not come and were not brought, were blessed by a visit from the Lord himself, but not this leper. Everyone had given this poor man up as a hopeless case. He was a lonely, isolated man. No man cared for his soul. No one could or would take him to the Savior. But it is our Lords delight to save the hopeless, the helpless, and the friendless.

This leper came to the Lord against many obstacles. He had no precedent to follow. No leper had come to the Lord Jesus before him. He had no promise of cure. He was not invited to come. And he had no legal right to come. Yet, the leper came to Christ confessing faith in him. He worshipped the Lord Jesus Christ as God. It appears that he believed him to be the very God by whom others like him were healed in days of old. He bowed to and worshipped Christ as his Lord. He knew the Christ had it in his power to make him clean and whole. And he confessed his faith in Christ in his own words. He did not merely repeat a prayer someone else told him to say!

In all those things this mans faith appears to be great and remarkable. Truly, it was. Yet, he displayed a great weakness of faith. Though he had no doubt that the Lord Jesus was able to heal him, he doubted whether he would heal him. He said, to the Lord Jesus, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

All Gods children in this world know, by experience, what it is to come to the Lord Jesus with such weakness of faith. Where is the saved sinner who has not come to the throne of grace, seeking mercy and grace in time of need, while very greatly in doubt that God would give the mercy and grace needed? God forgive our unbelief!

It was in just such weakness of faith that this poor leper came to the Savior. But such is the greatness of our Saviors grace, such is the character of our God who delighteth in mercy, that the weakness of our faith does not restrain his arm of grace! Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean (Mar 1:41).

Total Submission

This leper came to the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing his need of him, in great humiliation, and in faith. And he came to the Savior in total submission. He recognized that the whole issue was in the hands of Christ. He cried, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

He understood what few understand. Grace is Gods prerogative alone. Salvation depends entirely upon the will of the Lord our God, who has mercy on whom he will have mercy. Christ alone has the right to save and the power to save; and the whole matter of salvation is according to his own sovereign will (Rom 9:16; Rom 9:18). Recognizing the sovereignty of Christs power and the sovereignty of his will, the leper submitted to the Lord with joyful hope. He simply threw himself upon Christ. And we must do the same. Lord, if you will you can save me.

Yet, he had hope. The Lord had never refused such a request before. And there is hope for us. God never has yet turned away one seeking, believing, submissive sinner. It seems likely, therefore, that he will not turn any away now.

Perhaps he will admit my plea,

Perhaps will hear my prayer;

But if I perish, I will pray,

And perish only there.

I can but perish if I go,

I am resolved to try;

For if I stay away I know,

I must forever die.

But if I die with mercy sought,

When I the king have tried;

This were to die (delightful thought!)

As sinner never died.

The leper could not be worse off, even if he had been rejected. And if it were to happen that you sued for mercy and obtained it not, what would be your loss?

Mercy Obtained

But that was not the case. This poor leper obtained the mercy he desperately needed. Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. The Lord Jesus was moved with compassion toward him. And being moved with compassion toward him, he healed him immediately and completely.

Yet, there is more. The Lord Jesus healed this poor leper by touching him. Imagine that! Infinite, spotless purity reached down and touched utter corruption! The spotless Lamb of God took into union with himself our nature. He became one of us that he might save us poor, leprous sinners from our sin and make us clean by the sacrifice of himself. Upon the cursed tree, our Lord Jesus Christ was made sin for us (2Co 5:21). He who is altogether holy and pure, clean and righteous was made unclean before his own holy law, just as the priest who burned the red heifer with her dung was made unclean by the sacrifice required in Num 19:7. The Lord Jesus was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He died for his elect, the just for the unjust, because there was no other way he could make us just!

An Important Lesson

When we read the last three verses of this passage, we will find a very important lesson taught by our Master.

And he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away; And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter (Mar 1:43-45).

This cured lepers disobedience to the Saviors express command is here recorded by divine inspiration for a reason. The Holy Spirit is here showing us that there is a time to be silent about the things of God as well as a time to speak (Ecc 3:7). Our Savior says, Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you (Mat 7:6).

I realize that this is a matter to be dealt with carefully; but sometimes we serve the cause of Christ better by silence than by speech. It is best for us to be silent when the cause of Christ cannot be served by us speaking. We do not serve the cause of Christ by trying to cram our doctrine down the throats of those who oppose it. It is best to leave such people alone, until God opens the door to minister to them. It is best for us to be silent when those around us have no interest in hearing the good news of Gods grace. It is best for us to be silent when those around us only quibble and scoff at the things of God. And it is certainly best for us to be silent when we are supposed to be doing something else. It is a rare thing for an employer to pay a man wages to teach others the things of God.

No doubt, this man was sincere, and blazed the matter abroad because he wanted all around him to know what great grace he had experienced. But the result was that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city. There is a zeal which is not according to knowledge. Such zeal causes much harm. I would not attempt to prescribe to any when he should be silent and when he should blaze abroad the things of God. Yet, I do know that there are times when we serve our Savior and the interests of his kingdom far more effectively in silence than in other way.

Commenting on this passage, J. C. Ryle cautions, The subject is a delicate and difficult one, without doubt. Unquestionably the majority of Christians are far more inclined to be silent about their glorious Master than to confess Him before men and do not need the bridle so much as the spur. But still it is undeniable that there is a time for all things; and to know the time should be one great aim of a Christian. There are good men who have more zeal than discretion, and even help the enemy of truth by unseasonable acts and words.

May God give us the Spirit of wisdom, that we may serve and not hinder his cause in this world, that we may serve our Savior with good sense. We must never be fearful to confess Christ before Pharaoh as Moses did, or before Herod as John the Baptist did. Yet, we must not cast the pearls of his grace before swine to be trampled beneath their feet with contempt.

Still, there is more. Not only did the Savior command this man, See that thou say nothing to any man, he also said, Go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. He told him to go and show himself to the priest, specifically for a testimony unto them. He was told to go to the priest, so that the priest would pronounce him clean, as a testimony to the priests, either a convincing testimony to them that the Lord Jesus was the Son of God and true Messiah, or a standing testimony against them forever.

Certainly there is still more in this command. For all grace and mercy we should, first and foremost, show ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, our great High Priest and Almighty Savior, the Author and Giver of all. He is to be eyed and acknowledged first in all things. In all things let us live before him and unto him, not before men and unto men. As Paul puts it, Do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ (Gal 1:10).

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

there: Mat 8:2-4, Luk 5:12-14

a leper: Lev 13:1 – Lev 14:57, Num 12:10-15, Deu 24:8, Deu 24:9, 2Sa 3:29, 2Ki 5:5-27, 2Ki 5:27, 2Ki 7:3, 2Ki 15:5, Mat 11:5, Luk 17:12-19

kneeling: Mar 10:17, 2Ch 6:13, Mat 17:14, Luk 22:41, Act 7:60, Eph 3:14

if thou: Mar 9:22, Mar 9:23, Gen 18:14, 2Ki 5:7

Reciprocal: Lev 14:2 – He shall Mar 7:25 – at Act 14:9 – he had Act 21:5 – we kneeled

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Chapter 11.

The Healing of the Leper

“And there came a leper to Him, beseeching Him, and kneeling down to Him, and saying unto Him, If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth His hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. And He straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away; And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to Him from every quarter.”-Mar 1:40-45.

A Manifestation of Power.

What a revelation, not simply of the power but of the exquisite tenderness of Christ, this story gives us! With a superb and daring faith the leper cried, “If Thou wilt (or wiliest), Thou canst make me clean,” and in response our Lord said, “I will; be thou made clean” (Mar 1:40-41, R.V.). But that was not all He did. It would have been sufficient, we know. Our Lord could with a word and at a distance have cleansed this man of his loathsome plague. That would have showed His power. But He did more than that. “Being moved with compassion, He stretched forth His hand, and touched him;” and that showed His love (Mar 1:41, R.V.).

The Touch of Love.

All the evangelists make special note of the “touch.” It is in the “touch” that the real glory of Christ is seen. It is in the “touch” His compassion shines forth. Our Lord could have kept this man at a distance. He could have flung the gift of healing to him, as we fling a bone to a dog; and by so doing He might have hurt the man’s soul while healing his body. But that is never Christ’s way. “Moved with compassion, He stretched forth His hand, and touched him,” and by that touch He brought healing to his soul as well as cleansing to his body. It showed the leper that he had in Jesus not simply a Healer but a Lover of his soul.

Compassion Revealed.

It is Dr. Dale who calls attention to this fact-that it is not in the words of Christ we find the fuller and deeper revelation of the divine compassion, but in His deeds. “I doubt,” Dr. Dale says, “whether Christ ever said anything about the divine compassion more perfectly beautiful or more pathetic than had been said by the writer of the 103rd Psalm-‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.'” But new wonders of compassion, infinite reaches and depths of compassion, are revealed in our Lord’s deeds. And amongst the actions of Christ that disclose the wealth of His compassion is this, “He stretched forth His hand, and touched him.” Him! that poor, loathsome, abject creature, who had not felt the pressure of a clean hand upon him for years. Yet it was he whom Jesus stretched forth His hand and touched. It was not necessary for the healing of his body; no, this was love for the enriching and gladdening of his soul.

The One Undefiled.

“He stretched forth His hand, and touched him.” But did not the Law say that contact with a leper caused defilement? Yes, it did. But Jesus touches corruption, and yet contracts no taint. We have an old proverb to the effect that a man cannot touch pitch without being defiled. And Paul quotes a saying, to much the same purpose, from an old Greek play when telling the Corinthians that “evil communications corrupt good manners” (1Co 15:33). And yet Jesus was constantly touching what men would call “pitch” without defilement. Look at him here. He lays His hand on the leper’s loathsome flesh and contracts no taint; instead of that, the leper receives cleansing from His purity.

The Miracle an Acted Parable.

Indeed, this is a parable of what Jesus was doing all through His life. He was continually; “touching the leper.” What was His Incarnation? It was a case of “touching the leper.” He “took hold” upon the seed of Abraham. He was found in the likeness of sinful flesh. And yet He contracted no defilement. He dwelt amongst men, “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” And all through His earthly career, was He not continually and deliberately “touching the leper”? He went and sat at meat with publicans and sinners; what is that but “touching the leper”? “Zacchus, make haste and come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house;” what was that but “touching the leper”? And yet Jesus never brought a smudge or a stain upon His perfect purity. Instead of that His purity cleansed the sinners and lepers whom he touched.

The Master and the Servant

Can we not understand how it was Jesus was able not only to touch the sinner without defilement, but by His very purity uplifted and saved him? He came to be the Lamb without spot and without blemish; to live for, to die for others. God gave not the Spirit “by measure unto Him” (Joh 3:34). And we, too, if we be filled with the Spirit, may live even in Sardis and not “defile our garments.”

Fuente: The Gospel According to St. Mark: A Devotional Commentary

0

Leprosy was an incurable disease and a man afflicted with it was required to live apart from society (Lev 13:45-46). This leper had been convinced by the other miracles of Jesus that he could also heal him of leprosy if he was willing.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

WE read in these verses how our Lord Jesus Christ healed a leper. Of all our Lord’s miracles of healing none were probably more marvelous than those performed on leprous people. Two cases only have been fully described in the Gospel history. Of these two, the case before us is one.

Let us try to realize, in the first place, the dreadful nature of the disease which Jesus cured.

Leprosy is a complaint of which we know little or nothing in our northern climate. In Bible lands it is far more common. It is a disease which is utterly incurable. It is no mere skin affection, as some ignorantly suppose. It is a radical disease of the whole man. It attacks, not merely the skin, but the blood, the flesh, and the bones, until the unhappy patient begins to lose his extremities, and to rot by inches.-Let us remember beside this, that, amongst the Jews, the leper was reckoned unclean, and was cut off from the congregation of Israel and the ordinances of religion. He was obliged to dwell in a separate house. None might touch him or minister to him. Let us remember all this, and then we may have some idea of the remarkable wretchedness of a leprous person. To use the words of Aaron, when he interceded for Miriam, he was “as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed.” (Num 12:12.)

But is there nothing like leprosy among ourselves? Yes! indeed there is. There is a foul soul-disease which is ingrained into our very nature, and cleaves to our bones and marrow with deadly force. That disease is the plague of sin. Like leprosy, it is a deep-seated disease, infecting every part of our nature, heart, will, conscience, understanding, memory, and affections. Like leprosy, it makes us loathsome and abominable, unfit for the company of God, and unmeet for the glory of heaven. Like leprosy, it is incurable by any earthly physician, and is slowly but surely dragging us down to the second death. And, worst of all, far worse than leprosy, it is a disease from which no mortal man is exempt. “We are all,” in God’s sight, “as an unclean thing.” (Isa 64:6.)

Do we know these things? Have we found them out? Have we discovered our own sinfulness, guilt, and corruption? Happy indeed is that person who has been really taught to feel that he is a “miserable sinner,” and that there is “no health in him”! Blessed indeed is he who has learned that he is a spiritual leper, and a bad, wicked, sinful creature! To know our disease is one step towards a cure. It is the misery and the ruin of many souls that they never yet saw their sins and their need.

Let us learn, in the second place, from these verses, the wondrous and almighty power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are told that the unhappy leper came to our Lord, “beseeching Him, and kneeling down,” and saying, “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” We are told that “Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth His hand and touched him, and said to him, I will, be thou clean.” At once the cure was effected. That very instant the deadly plague departed from the poor sufferer, and he was healed. It was but a word, and a touch, and there stands before our Lord, not a leper, but a sound and healthy man.

Who can conceive the greatness of the change in the feelings of this leper, when he found himself healed? The morning sun rose upon him, a miserable being, more dead than alive, his whole frame a mass of sores and corruption, his very existence a burden. The evening sun saw him full of hope and joy, free from pain, and fit for the society of his fellow-men. Surely the change must have been like life from the dead.

Let us bless God that the Savior with whom we have to do is almighty. It is a cheering and comfortable thought that with Christ nothing is impossible. No heart-disease is so deep-seated but He is able to cure it. No plague of soul is so virulent but our Great Physician can heal it. Let us never despair of any one’s salvation, so long as he lives. The worst of spiritual lepers may yet be cleansed. No cases of spiritual leprosy could be worse than those of Manasseh, Saul, and Zaccheus, yet they were all cured;-Jesus Christ made them whole. The chief of sinners may yet be brought nigh to God by the blood and Spirit of Christ. Men are not lost, because they are too bad to be saved, but because they will not come to Christ that He may save them.

Let us learn, in the last place, from these verses, that there is a time to be silent about the work of Christ, as well as a time to speak.

This is a truth which is taught us in a remarkable way. We find our Lord strictly charging this man to tell no one of his cure, to “say nothing to any man.” We find this man in the warmth of his zeal disobeying this injunction, and publishing and “blazing abroad” his cure in every quarter. And we are told that the result was that Jesus “could no more enter into the city, but was without in desert places.”

There is a lesson in all this of deep importance, however difficult it may be to use it rightly. It is clear that there are times when our Lord would have us work for Him quietly and silently, rather than attract public attention by a noisy zeal. There is a zeal which is “not according to knowledge,” as well as a zeal which is righteous and praiseworthy. Everything is beautiful in its season. Our Master’s cause may on some occasions be more advanced by quietness and patience, than in any other way. We are not to “give that which is holy to dogs,” nor “cast pearls before swine.” By forgetfulness of this we may even do more harm than good, and retard the very cause we want to assist.

The subject is a delicate and difficult one, without doubt. Unquestionably the majority of Christians are far more inclined to be silent about their glorious Master than to confess Him before men-and do not need the bridle so much as the spur. But still it is undeniable that there is a time for all things; and to know the time should be one great aim of a Christian. There are good men who have more zeal than discretion, and even help the enemy of truth by unseasonable acts and words. [Footnote: It would not be wise for a speaker at an English public meeting to proclaim the names of the families in Italy where the Bible is read, and to point out the streets and houses where these families resided. Such a speaker might be well-meaning, and full of zeal. He might really desire to glorify Christ, and publish the triumphs of His grace. But he would be guilty of a sad indiscretion, and show great ignorance of the very lesson which the verses before us contain. The words of an old commentator on this subject deserve notice:

“In that our Saviour forbids this leper to publish this miracle at this unseasonable time, we learn that all truths are not to be professed or uttered at all times. Though we must never deny any truth, being demanded of it, or lawfully enjoined to profess it, yet there is a wise concealment of the truth, which is sometimes to be used. (Ecc 3:7.)

“When are we to conceal the truth? 1. When the case stands so that the uttering of it may bring hurt to the truth itself, as here, the publishing of this miracle was like to stop Christ’s ministry. 2. When we are in the company of such persons as are more likely to cavil and scoff at the truth, than to make any good use of it. 3. When we are in the company of malicious enemies of the truth.” (Mat 7:6.)-Petter on Mark. 1661.]

Let us all pray for the Spirit of wisdom and of a sound mind. Let us seek daily to know the path of duty, and ask daily for discretion and good sense. Let us be bold as a lion in confessing Christ, and not be afraid to “speak of Him before princes,” if need be. But let us never forget that “Wisdom is profitable to direct” (Ecc 10:10), and let us beware of doing harm by an ill-directed zeal.

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Mar 1:40. A leper. See on Mat 8:2. The variations from that account are only in the choice of words and the omission of Lord here.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The last miracle of our Saviour’s recorded in this chapter, is the healing of a leper; he came, beseeching Christ to heal him, saying, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

Where observe, 1. He doth not question Christ’s power, but distrusts Christ’s willingness to heal him; Lord if thou wilt, thou canst. Christ’s divine power must be fully assented to, and firmly believed, by all those that expect benefit by him, and healing from him.

Observe, 2. The great readiness of Christ to help and heal this distressed person. Jesus touched him, saying, I will, be thou clean.

By the ceremonial law, the leper was forbidden to be touched, therefore Christ’s touching the leper showed him to be above the law, and that he was the Lord of it, and might dispense with it; and his healing the leper by the word of his mouth, and touch of his hand, showed him to be truly and really God. Leprosy among the Jews was an incurable distemper, called the finger of God, a disease of his sending, and of his removing.

Our Saviour therefore, as a proof of his being the true Messiah, tells John’s disciples, that the lepers were cleansed, and the dead raised Mat 11:5 by him; which two being joined together, do imply, that the cleansing of lepers is as much an act of divine power as the raising of the dead.

And accordingly, it is said, Am I God, that this man sends to me to cure a man of his leprosy? 2Ki 5:7

Observe, 3. The certainty and suddenness of the cure was a proof of Christ’s divine power; immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Christ not only cured him without means, but without the ordinary time required for such a cure. Thus Christ showed both power and will to cure him miraculously, who believed his power, but questioned his willingness.

Observe, 4. The cause, moving our Saviour to cure this leper; his bowels were moved with tender pity and compassion towards him. Christ’s exercising acts of mercy and compassion, with such condolency and sympathizing pity, should by way of example teach us to be inwardly moved with tender compassion and mercy towards such as are in misery. We are not only to draw out our bread, but to draw out our soul, to the hungry.

Observe, 5. A twofold charge and command given by Christ to the leper after his cure.

First, to conceal and tell it to no man. Where the great modesty, humility, and piety, of Christ, is discovered, together with the care of his own safety. His modesty, in not desiring his good deeds should be published and proclaimed; his humility, in shunning vain-glorious applause and commendation; his piety, in desiring all honour and glory should redound entirely to God. And the care of his own safety appeared, lest the publishing of his miracles should create him untimely danger from the Pharisees.

The second part of the charge given to the recovered leper, was to show himself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them; that is, to testify to the Jews, that he did not oppose the ceremonial law, which required a thank-offering at his hand, and that he was the true and promised Messiah.

Learn thence, That our Saviour would have the ceremonial law punctually observed so long as the time for its continuance did endure; though he came to destroy that law, yet, whilst it stood, he would have it punctually observed.

Observe, 6. Notwithstanding our Saviour’s strict prohibition, the leper publishes the fame of this miracle. It is likely his intention might be good, in extolling his great Benefactor; but his acting contrary to Christ’s command was a fault, and shows the corruption of human nature, in being most forward to that which is most forbidden. It is a sin to do any thing against the command of Christ, though with never so good a meaning, purpose, and intention, to exalt and honour Christ.

Observe lastly, The inconveniences which attended our Saviour upon this indiscreet publication of the miracle; and they were two:

1. Our Saviour could no more enter into Capernaum, and other cities, to preach in an open manner, as he had done, by reason of the great concourse of people after him.

2. The fame of this miracle brought the people about him from all quarters; not so much to hear as to see; not so much to hear his holy and heavenly doctrine which he taught, as to gratify their curiosity with the sight of the miracles which he wrought.

O how many thronged after Christ, more to have their bodily diseases cured, than their souls healed! Christ desired not their flocking after him upon this account; therefore he retires from the breath of popular applause: he would not openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places. O how great humility! How little did our blessed Redeemer regard the applause and commendation of men!

Constantly we find him, as soon as his public preaching and working of miracles was over, withdrawing himself from the multitude into some private place apart: he doth not stay in the crowd with his ear open to listen how men admire the preacher, and applaud the sermon. Plainly showing, that he sought his Father’s glory, not his own praise or the people’s commendation; leaving his example as an instructive pattern to all his ministers and ambassadors, to take heed of vain-glory; not to affect popularity, or to seek the applause and commendation of men in what they do, resolving that man’s opinion shall be nothing with them, but that the pleasing of God, and doing their duty to the souls of their people, shall always be their whole scope.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mar 1:40-44. And there came a leper, &c. Concerning the miracle recorded in these verses, see the notes on Mat 8:2-4.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

XXXIV.

JESUS HEALS A LEPER AND CREATES MUCH EXCITEMENT.

aMATT.VIII. 2-4; bMARK I. 40-45; cLUKE V. 12-16.

c12 And it came to pass, while he was in one of the cities [it was a city of Galilee, but as it was not named, it is idle to conjecture which city it was], behold, bthere cometh {acame} bto him a leper [There is much discussion as to what is here meant by leprosy. Two diseases now go by that name; viz., psoriasis and elephantiasis. There are also three varieties of psoriasis, namely, white, black and red. There are also three varieties or modifications of elephantiasis, namely, tubercular, spotted or streaked, and ansthetic. Elephantiasis is the leprosy found in modern times in Syria, Greece, Spain, Norway and Africa. Now, since Lev 13:1-59., in determining [176] leprosy, lays great stress on a white or reddish-white depression of the skin, the hairs in which are turned white or yellow, and since it also provides that the leper who is white all over shall be declared clean, and since in the only two cases where lepers are described– Num 12:10, 2Ki 5:27–they are spoken of as “white as snow,” scholars have been led to think that the Biblical leprosy was the white form of psoriasis. But the facts hardly warrant us in excluding the other forms of psoriasis, or even elephantiasis; for 1. Leviticus xiii. also declares that any bright spot or scale shall be pronounced leprosy, if it be found to spread abroad over the body; and this indefinite language would let in elephantiasis, cancer and many other skin diseases. In fact, the law deals with the initial symptoms rather than with the ultimate phases of the fully developed disease. 2. Elephantiasis was a common disease in our Saviour’s time, and has been ever since, and would hardly be called leprosy now, if it had not been popularly so called then. The word “leprosy” comes from “lepo,” which means to peel off in scales. It is hereditary for generations, though modern medical authorities hold that it is not contagious. However, the returning Crusaders spread it all over Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries, so that according to Matthew Paris there was no less than nine thousand hospitals set apart for its victims. The facts that the priests had to handle and examine lepers, and that any one who was white all over with leprosy was declared clean, led scholars to think that the laws of Moses, which forbade any one to approach or touch a leper, were not enacted to prevent the spread of a contagion, but for typical and symbolic purposes. It is thought that God chose the leprosy as the symbol of sin and its consequences, and that the Mosaic legislation was given to carry out this conception. Being the most loathsome and incurable of all diseases, it fitly represents in bodily form the ravages of sin in the soul of a man. But there must also have been a sanitary principle in God’s laws, since we still deem it wise to separate lepers, and since other people besides the Hebrews (as the Persians) prohibited lepers from mingling with other [177] citizens. Elephantiasis is the most awful disease known. The body of its victim disintegrates joint by joint, until the whole frame crumbles to pieces. Psoriasis is milder, but is very distressing. Mead thus describes a case: The “skin was shining as covered with flakes of snow. And as the furfuraceous or bran-like, scales were daily rubbed off, the flesh appeared quick or raw underneath.” In addition to the scaly symptoms, the skin becomes hard and cracks open, and from the cracks an ichorous humor oozes. The disease spreads inwardly, and ends in consumption, dropsy, suffocation, and death], ca man full of leprosy [Some have thought that Luke meant to indicate one so completely covered with leprosy as to be clean ( Lev 13:28, Lev 13:29, Lev 13:36, Lev 13:37). But the fact that Jesus sent him to the priest, shows that he was not such a clean leper. Luke meant to describe a leper in the last stages of the disease–a leper past all hope]: and when he saw Jesus, bbeseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying to him, che fell on his face, aand worshipped him, cand besought him, saying, bunto him, cLord [The Jews, in addressing any distinguished person, usually employed the title “Lord.” They were also accustomed to kneel before prophets and kings. It is not likely that the leper knew enough of Jesus to address him as the Son of God. He evidently took Jesus for some great prophet; but he must have had great faith, for he was full of confidence that Jesus had power to heal him, although there was but one case of leper-cleansing in the Scriptures– 2Ki 5:1-19, Luk 4:27], if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. [The leper believed in the power of Jesus, but doubted his willingness to expend it on one so unworthy and so unclean. In temporal matters we can not always be as sure of God’s willingness as we can be of his power. We should note that the man asked rather for the blessing of cleanness than for health. To the Jew uncleanness was more horrible than disease. It meant to be an outcast from Israel, and to be classed with swine, dogs and other odious and abhorrent creatures. The leper, therefore, prayed that the Lord would remove his shame [178] and pollution.] b41 And being moved with compassion, he stretched forth his hand, and touched him [Mark habitually notes the feelings, and hence also the gestures of Jesus. It was not an accidental, but an intentional, touch. Popular belief so confused and confounded leprosy with the uncleanness and corruption of sin, as to make the leper feel that Jesus might also compromise his purity if he concerned himself to relieve it. The touch of Jesus, therefore, gave the leper a new conception of divine compassion. It is argued that Jesus, by this touch, was made legally unclean until the evening ( Lev 13:46, Lev 11:40). But we should note the spirit and purpose of this law. Touch was prohibited because it defiled the person touching, and aided not the person touched. In Jesus’ case the reasons for the law were absent, the conditions being reversed. Touching defiled not the toucher, and healed the touched. In all things Jesus touches and shares our human state, but he so shares it that instead of his being defiled by our uncleanness, we are purified by his righteousness. Moreover, Jesus, as a priest after the order of Melchizedek ( Heb 5:6), possessed the priestly right to touch the leper without defilement– Heb 4:15], and saith unto him, {csaying,} I will; be thou made clean. [The Lord’s answer is an echo of the man’s prayer. The words, “I will,” express the high authority of Jesus.] b42 And straightway the {ahis} cleprosy departed from him, {awas cleansed.} band he was made clean. [“Luke says, ‘departed’, giving the merely physical view of the event. Matthew says, ‘was cleansed’, using ceremonial language. Mark combines the two forms”–Godet.] 43 And he strictly charged him, cto tell no man [The language used indicates that Jesus sternly forbade the man to tell what had been done. The man’s conduct, present and future, shows that he needed severe speech. In his uncontrollable eagerness to be healed he had overstepped his privileges, for he was not legally permitted to thus enter cities and draw near to people ( Num 5:2, Num 5:3); he was to keep at a distance from them, and covering his mouth, was to cry, “Tame, [179] tame–unclean, unclean” ( Lev 13:45, Lev 13:46, Luk 17:12, Luk 17:13). The man evinced a like recklessness in disregarding the command of Jesus]: band straightway sent him out, a4 And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; {bsay nothing to any man:} [Several reasons are suggested why the Lord thus commanded silence: 1. It may have been better for the man not to mention his cure ( Joh 9:34). 2. He required the decision of the priest to make him legally clean; and too much talk might so prejudice the priests as to lead them to refuse to admit his cure. 3. But the best reason is that it accorded with our Lord’s general course, which was to suppress excitement, and thus prevent too great crowds from gathering about him and hindering his work. To take this view is to say that Jesus meant to prevent exactly what happened] cbut go, and show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, bthe things which {athe gift that} Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. [Though healed of his leprosy, the man was not legally clean until declared so by the priest. The priest alone could readmit him to the congregation. The local priest inspected the healed leper, and if he was found clean or cured, he was purified by the use of two birds, cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop, razor and bath. After seven days he was again inspected, and if still cured the priest repaired with him to the temple, where he offered the gift for his cleansing, which was three lambs, with flour and oil; or if the leper was poor, one lamb and two doves or pigeons, with flour and oil ( Lev 14:19-22.). The healed leper was a testimony that Messiah, the great Physician, had come, and that he respected the law of Moses. This testimony was given both to priests and people.] 45 But he went out [from the presence of Jesus and from the city], and began to publish it much, and to spread abroad the matter, {c15 But so much the more went abroad the report concerning him:}. [The leper was so elated that he could scarcely refrain from publishing his cure, and he must also have thought that this was what Jesus really [180] wanted–that in commanding him not to publish it he did not mean what he said] and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. binsomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city [Not a natural or physical inability, but the inability of impropriety. Jesus could not do what he judged not best to do. The excitement cause by such an entry was injurious in several ways: 1. It gave such an emphasis to the miracles of Jesus as to make them overshadow his teaching. 2. It threatened to arouse the jealousy of the government. 3. It rendered the people incapable of calm thought. Two things constantly threatened the ministry of Jesus, namely, impatience in the multitude, and envious malice in the priests and Pharisees. Jesus wished to add to neither of these elements of opposition. Thus the disobedience of the leper interrupted Jesus, and thwarted him in his purpose to visit the villages. Disobedience, no matter how well-meaning, always hinders the work of Christ], c16 But he withdrew himself in the deserts, {bwas without in desert places:} [That is, the the remote grazing-lands like that desert in which he afterwards fed the five thousand. Such was our Lord’s unexampled meekness that he preferred the silent deserts to the applause of multitudes. His meekness was as high above the capacity of a merely human being as were his miracles] cand prayed. [Luke’s gospel is pre-eminently the gospel of prayer and thanksgiving] band they came to him from every quarter.

[FFG 176-181]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

Mat 13:2-4; Mar 1:40-45; & Luk 5:12-16. Mark: And a leper comes to Him, calling upon Him, and kneeling down before Him, and saying to Him, If You may wish, You are able to cleanse me. And Jesus being moved with compassion, and reaching forth His hand, touched him, and says to him, I am willing; be thou cleansed. The Greek for be thou cleansed, is katristheti, which is in the imperative mode, passive voice, and aorist tense. Therefore it literally means, Be thou completely cleansed instantaneously; Be thou clean, E.V., is too weak a translation of the word our Savior spoke.

Luke says this man was full of leprosy, in contradistinction to a case of leprosy occupying a part of the body. No wonder he was exceedingly importunate, as he was leprous all over.

And charging him, He immediately sent him away, and says to him, See that you tell nothing to any one; but go, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. The lepers in Palestine still have their separate quarters in the cities, dwelling to themselves, as in the days of Christ. I met them at Shechem and at Jerusalem. The popular idea that the separation is because of the contagion of the disease is utterly incorrect. It is not contagious. If it were, what would become of the priests, who, in the discharge of their official duties, are in constant contact with it? See the law of the leper (Leviticus 14), and you will find that when the priest made the examination, and pronounced it leprosy, the victim must go away from society, and live in the leprous quarters. It was well understood among the Jews that leprosy was utterly incurable by human agency. Hence when God, the only Healer, had mercy on the poor leper, he must go to the priest, submit to his diagnosis, and receive from him a certificate of healing, before he was allowed to go into society. While leprosy is not contagious, and not so understood where it is prevalent this day as I came in contact with them, laying a coin on each arm reached forth in supplication, both hands having been eaten off by leprosy yet it is incorrigibly hereditary, from the fact that, like scrofula, it is a blood trouble, affecting every corpuscle of blood in the system, so that it is invariably transmitted to the succeeding generation. Leprosy is a most vivid emblem of inbred sin, which is not necessarily contagious, but inevitably hereditary. Infants born of leprous parents are bright and sprightly, exhibiting no signs of the disease. Yet, soon or late, it is certain to make its appearance, if they do not meet the Healer. So infants born into the world have no actual sin, but have inherited the sinward tendency, which, if not eradicated by grace, will certainly develop into actual transgression. The bite of the rattlesnake when a little thing, soon after evacuating the egg, will not hurt you. But the time will come when he will poison and kill you. While the leprous taint in the blood emblematizes inbred sin in the irresponsible infant, the eruptions on the body represent actual transgressions. e what a striking symbol, not only of inbred sin, but the awful spiritual death which supervenes! You have leprosy in your blood, and feel vigorous and healthy. Before you are aware, it develops on your finger and it drops off; continues its work of destruction till your hand drops off at the wrist. It begins on your face; takes away your nose, and then an eye; reaches your brain, and, fortunately, death comes suddenly to your relief. The reason why the law of Moses required them to live separate was because of the awful loathsomeness of the disease indescribable, horrific, living death! Leprosy, fortunately for us, is not common in America, though I have seen cases of it; but quite common in the Bible lands, where I met them during both of my tours, thus, like everything else in those countries, so wonderfully corroborating the Bible.

And He, having gone out, began to proclaim everything, and spread abroad the history, so that He was no longer able to come publicly into the city; but was off in desert places, and they continued to come to Him from all parts. Luke: But He was away in the deserts, and praying. Why was Jesus so much opposed to their publishing His mighty works, and why could He not come into the city at this time, but must hide away in the deserts i.e., in an uninhabited region of country? From time immemorial, the Jews had all understood that Christ was to be their King. At that time the nation was in deep distress, because thirty years had elapsed since the death of Herod the Great, and during which they had no king, but had been reduced to a Roman province, and were ruled by a proconsul sent out from Rome, thus their liberties gone and their people subject to the Gentiles. Hence, throughout the Hebrew nation, there was a deep sigh, and a perpetual cry to God to break the Roman yoke, restore to them their independence, and give them a king of Hebrew blood to reign over them. These wonderful miracles, when published abroad, raised the people on tiptoe to crown Him King of the Jews. In that case the Roman authorities would have killed Him before He had completed the work He Came to do.

Hence, in order to prevent His own coronation, and the sudden outbreak of a terrible, bloody war, which would have interrupted His ministry and expedited His death, He found it necessary to avoid the multitude. These intervals, which He spent off in the desert in communion with His Father, were wonderful times of refreshing to His spirit, and invigoration for the arduous work and terrible ordeals which awaited him.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Mar 1:40-45. The Healing of the Leper.By placing this incident at this point in his narrative, Mk. gives a further reason for the difficulty which met Jesus on His return from Capernaum. The story with Mk.s ending connects closely with ch. 2. We have here a work of healing (not, as some think, a request to Jesus to declare the man free from leprosy), but the original interest centres on the sayings of Jesus embedded in the story.

Mar 1:40. HNT cites Epictetus III. Mar 10:14 f.: Why then do you flatter the physician? Why do you say, If thou wilt, sir, I shall be well?

Mar 1:41. An early reading gives moved with anger instead of with compassion. If this reading be original, the flattery of if thou wilt, or the implied doubt of His goodwill may occasion the emotion (cf. Mar 10:14-18; see also Temple, Kingdom of God, pp. 25f.).

Mar 1:43. The word strictly charged suggested strong feeling, as also the verb thrust him out (Gr. exebalen; cf. Mar 1:12). Apparently the scene of the incident is a house, into which no leper should have come (Lev 13:46).

Mar 1:44. Jesus enjoins the carrying out of the Law (Lev 14:2-32) Perhaps omit comma after commanded (RV), since for a testimony unto them is not emphatic, and does not mean to testify to the priests that a prophet has arisen (so Swete). That would defeat the object of the injunction of silence.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 40

Make me clean; heal me.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

40 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 41 And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth [his] hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. 42 And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.

We see first of all the faith of the man – a belief that he could be clean. Second we see something new in the account of healings and that would be that the Lord moved via compassion, not some Messianic bestowal of a gift or a Messianic power trip but from simple compassion.

I wondered when working through some of the other healing accounts whether Christ was doing these things out of compassion or as just a sign for the people. This brings up another question to ponder. Since he was moving with compassion, had He not been compassionate of nature, would He have healed at all?

The simple answer to this of course is that compassion is part of God’s nature so it is a mute point. Add to this the fact that Christ’s ministry was set from eternity past, the compassion and the healing were built into the plan. On the simple observation side, knowing Christ’s life and manner in the Gospels aside from the healing, would indicate a compassionate man. He was a man of peace and was concerned about the people and concern normally comes from compassion.

Now back to the faith of the man for a moment. He came to Christ knowing that healing was possible, he came knowing it was up to Christ whether it would happen or not and third he came with a worshipful attitude when he kneeled before the Lord.

I thought it interesting that Christ responded specifically and verbally to the request (“I will”) as well as physically by healing him. I don’t know if that is important or not, but seems rather important in the situation. He could have just done it and walked away, yet he uttered a verbal response to the man’s request. Indeed all three gospels that record this occurrence state the “I will” in their account.

Luke gives us a little more information in that Luke states that the man was “full” of leprosy. He was in full blown condition – a very sorry case to be sure, and yet Christ, according to the same three gospels, Christ reached forth and touched the man. That is a lot of compassion one might observe.

The three writers record the man’s posture differently. Mark mentions “kneeling” while Matthewmentions “worshipped him” while Luke records “he fell on his face, and besought him” all different aspects to what they observed. The term besought may be a little strong in the translation. The Greek word means simply something requested or desired.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

1:40 {12} And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

(12) By healing the leprous he shows that he came for this reason: to wipe out the sins of the world with his touch.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

2. The cleansing of a leprous Jew 1:40-45 (cf. Matthew 8:1-4; Luke 5:12-16)

This pericope evidently describes one incident during the Galilean preaching tour just summarized. It provides a striking example of Jesus’ supernatural power. This is only one of two healings of lepers that the Gospels record, though Jesus healed other lepers (cf. Mat 11:5). The other recorded incident involved Jesus cleansing 10 lepers in Samaria (cf. Luk 17:11-19). The only Old Testament instances of lepers experiencing healing involved Miriam (Num 12:10-15) and Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5). This incident that Mark recorded was significant because it brought the religious leaders from Jerusalem into Galilee to investigate Jesus. This is the beginning of the hostility motif in Mark.

"Lepers were allowed to live unhampered wherever they chose, except in Jerusalem and cities which had been walled from antiquity. They could even attend the synagogue services if a screen was provided to isolate them from the rest of the congregation. In spite of these two provisions, however, leprosy brought deep physical and mental anguish for both the afflicted individual and the community in which or near which he lived." [Note: Ibid., p. 85.]

Mark is the only evangelist who recorded that compassion moved Jesus to heal this pitiable man (Mar 1:41). However his version of this miracle stressed what the leper did after Jesus healed him. Jesus had "sternly warned" (Gr. embrimaomai) the cleansed leper not to tell anyone what Jesus had done for him (Mar 1:43-44; cf. Mar 1:25; Mar 1:34; Mar 3:12; Mar 5:43; Mar 7:36; Mar 9:9). Only Mark used this strong word. Jesus wanted to avoid becoming known simply as a miracle worker, which might lead to pressure to avoid the Cross. However the man disobeyed Jesus even though he probably thought he had good reason to do so, namely, to bring praise to Jesus. His disobedience to Jesus’ word frustrated Jesus’ work rather than advancing it. Jesus needed to minister to people, but the leper’s action forced Him to spend more time in uninhabited, solitary places (Gr. eremon, Mar 1:4; Mar 1:35).

Perhaps Mark pointed this out to encourage his Christian readers to follow the Word of God carefully. Sometimes believers disobey God because we think our way will be better than His. It never is. Frequently it has the same result as this cleansed leper’s disobedience. It retards God’s mission rather than advancing it. The fact that this man was a cleansed leper makes believers’ identification with him easy since leprosy in the Bible is similar to sin, and believers are cleansed sinners.

The leper’s disobedience did not destroy God’s plan but only created complications. The Galileans still kept seeking Jesus out (Mar 1:45). [Note: See Joel F. Williams, "Discipleship and Minor Characters in Mark’s Gospel," Bibliotheca Sacra 153:611 (July-September 1996):332-43; Kingsbury, pp. 24-27.]

"We should learn some important spiritual lessons from this chapter. To begin with, if the Son of God came as a servant, then being a servant is the highest of all callings. We are never more like the Lord Jesus than when we are serving others. Second, God shares His authority with His servants. Only those who are under authority have the right to exercise authority. Finally, if you are going to be a servant, be sure you have compassion; because people will come to you for help and rarely ask if it is convenient!" [Note: Wiersbe, 1:114.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

CHAPTER 1:40-45 (Mar 1:40-45)

THE LEPER

“And there cometh to Him a leper, beseeching Him, and kneeling down to Him, and saying unto Him, If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. And being moved with compassion, He stretched forth His hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou made clean. And straightway the leprosy departed from him, and he was made clean. And He strictly charged him, and straightway sent him out, and saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing the things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to spread abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but was without in desert places: and they came to Him from every quarter.” Mar 1:40-45 (R.V.)

THE disease of leprosy was peculiarly fearful to a Jew. In its stealthy beginning, its irresistible advance, the utter ruin which it wrought from the blood outward until the flesh was corroded and fell away, it was a fit type of sin, at first so trivial in its indications, but gradually usurping all the nature and corrupting it. And the terrible fact, that the children of its victims were also doomed, reminded the Israelite of the transmission of the taint of Adam.

The story of Naaman and that of Gehazi make it almost certain that the leprosy of Scripture was not contagious, for they were intimate with kings. But, apparently to complete the type, the law gave to it the artificial contagion of ceremonial uncleanness, and banished the unhappy sufferer from the dwellings of men. Thus he came to be regarded as under an especial ban, and the prophecy which announced that the illustrious Man of Sorrows would be esteemed “stricken of God,” was taken to mean that He should be a leper. This banishment of the leper was indeed a remarkable exception to the humanity of the ancient law, but when his distress began to be extreme, and “the plague was turned into white,” he was released from his uncleanness (Lev 13:17). And this may teach us that sin is to be dreaded most while it is yet insidious; when developed it gives a sufficient warning against itself. And now such a sufferer appeals to Jesus. The incident is one of the most pathetic in the Gospel; and its graphic details, and the shining character which it reveals, make it very perplexing to moderate and thoughtful skeptics.

Those who believe that the charm of His presence was “worth all the resources of medicine,” agree that Christ may have cured even leprosy, and insist that this story, as told by St. Mark, “must be genuine.” Others suppose that the leper was already cured, and Jesus only urged him to fulfill the requirements of the law. And why not deny the story boldly? Why linger so longingly over the details, when credence is refused to what is plainly the mainspring of the whole, the miraculous power of Jesus? The answer is plain. Honest minds feel the touch of a great nature; the misery of the suppliant and the compassion of his Restorer are so vivid as to prove themselves; no dreamer of a myth, no process of legend-building, ever wrought after this fashion. But then, the misery and compassion being granted, the whole story is practically conceded. It only remains to ask, whether the “presence of the Saintly Man” could work a chemical change in tainted blood. For it must be insisted that the man was “full of leprosy,” and not, as one suggests, already far advanced towards cure. The contrast between his running and kneeling at the very feet of Jesus, and the conduct of the ten lepers, not yet released from their exclusion, who stood afar off while they cried out (Luk 17:12), is sufficient evidence of this, even if the express statement of St. Luke were not decisive.

Repulsive, and until now despairing, only tolerated among men through the completeness of his plague, this man pushes through the crowd which shrinks from him, kneels in an agony of supplication, and says “If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” If Thou wilt! The cruelty of man has taught him to doubt the heart, even though satisfied of the power of Jesus. In a few years, men came to assume the love, and exult in the reflection that He was “able to keep what was’ committed to Him,” “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” It did not occur to St. Paul that any mention of His will was needed.

Nor did Jesus Himself ask a later suppliant, “Believest thou that I am willing,” but “Believest thou that I am able to do this?”

But the charm of this delightful incident is the manner in which our Lord grants the impassioned prayer. We might have expected a shudder, a natural recoil from the loathsome spectacle, and then a wonder-working word. But misery which He could relieve did not repel Jesus; it attracted Him. His impulse was to approach. He not only answered “I will,” — and deep is the will to remove all anguish in the wonderful heart of Jesus, — but He stretched forth an unshrinking hand, and touched that death in life. It is a parable of all His course, this laying of a clean hand on the sin of the world to cleanse it. At His touch, how was the morbid frame thrilled with delightful pulses of suddenly renovated health. And how was the despairing, joyless heart, incredulous of any real will to help him, soothed and healed by the pure delight of being loved.

This is the true lesson of the narrative. St. Mark treats the miraculous cure much more lightly than the tender compassion and the swift movement to relieve suffering. And he is right. The warm and generous nature revealed by this fine narrative is what, as we have seen, most impresses the doubter, and ought most to comfort the Church. For He is the same yesterday and today. And perhaps, if the divinity of love impressed men as much as that of power, there would be less denial of the true Godhead of our Lord.

The touch of a leper made a Jew unclean. And there is a surprising theory, that when Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, it was because the leper had disobediently published what implied His ceremonial defilement. As if our Lord were one to violate the law by stealth.

But is it very remarkable that Christ, Who was born under the law, never betrayed any anxiety about cleanness. The law of impurity was in fact an expression of human frailty. Sin spreads corruption far more easily than virtue diffuses purity. The touch of goodness fails to reproduce goodness. And the prophet Haggai has laid stress upon this contrast, that bread or pottage or wine or oil or any meat will not become holy at the touch of one who bears holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, but if one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, it shall be unclean (Hag 2:12-13). Our hearts know full well how true to nature is the ordinance.

But Christ brought among us a virtue more contagious than our vices are, being not only a living soul, but a life-imparting Spirit. And thus He lays His hand upon this leper, upon the bier at Nain, upon the corpse of the daughter of Jairus, and as fire is kindled at the touch of fire, so instead of pollution to Him, the pureness of healthful life is imparted to the defiling and defiled.

And His followers also are to possess a religion that is vitalizing, to be the light of the world, and the salt of the earth.

If we are thus to further His cause, we must not only be zealous but obedient. Jesus strictly charged the leper not to fan the flame of an excitement which already impeded His work. But there was an invaluable service which he might render: the formal registration of his cure, the securing its official recognition by the priests, and their consent to offer the commanded sacrifices. In many a subsequent controversy, that “testimony unto them” might have been embarrassing indeed. But the leper lost his opportunity, and put them upon their guard. And as through his impulsive clamor Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but even in desert places was beset by excited crowds, so is He deprived today of many a tranquil ministration and lowly service, by the zeal which despises order and quiet methods, by the undisciplined and ill-judged demonstrations of men and women whom He has blessed.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary